Multi board rendering or external rendering?

Layout 3D Models
1

I have a design that has two PCBs, so I have created them as two separate projects (I read there is no good way to have a single project with multiple PCBs, so I split the design). Now I would like to get a rendering of both boards together in the same view. Is there any way to do this in KiCAD, and if not, are there options for external rendering via something like Blender or otherwise?

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  1. You can export both boards as vrml and then combine them in modeling software that accepts that format.
  2. You can export one board as vrml and then use that vrml as 3d model for a “footprint” that you will add to another board, that way kicad will render both.
3

Thanks for the tips. I just tried exporting one of the PCBs as VRML an importing into Blender, but there does not seem to be any color or material information included. The result render is just flat white.

I’ll give the footprint method a try and see how that goes.

4

I just exported vrml for one of my boards and it is definitely colored. Try playing with import options in blender or maybe use another software.

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Oh, ok cool. I’ll pay a little more attention to the process and see what the options are. What did you use to view your colored VRML exported board?

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Some “3d Builder” thingy that comes with windows 10.
I also tried importing it into FreeCAD and it looks great there too:

Annotation%202019-08-24%20161855
Annotation%202019-08-24%201618551230Ă—1045 201 KB

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Blender: pain in the butt, stiff learning curve like FreeCAD.

FreeCAD: pain in the butt, requires hair-pulling and an external renderer like POV. Imported the models fine, but still can’t get POV working with it.

Windows 10 3D Building thingy: very easy like the KiCAD viewer, but it had to “repair” my models after importing which was taking forever and did not seem to finish after waiting for over 20 minutes.

I’ll get something going. Thanks for the help!

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I do that all the time, but with step/wrl combination. The result can be seen in Designing a multiple levels PCBs in KiCad?.

Workflow, simplified:

  1. Import an existing motherboard into FreeCAD StepUp.
  2. Export it to KiCad-compatible step and wrl.
  3. Add those to a footprint which has the motherboard features as graphics (maybe pads, too).
  4. Add the footprint to a “shield” design.

Now you can see both boards in the KiCad’s 3D view, nicely rendered. I think the most difficult part is mapping step colors to wrl colors in StepUp. And for this to work the step models must have colors.

After that you can of course export the whole as VRML from KiCad, or import the board to FreeCAD to export it as step/wrl again.

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