Origin Location

Layout
1

I’m curious why the Origin is set to the top left in the PCB Editor. I have some experience with a few other layout tools and found that when going to the PCB side of the tool, it is often very useful to be able to set the origin so that I can place components by simply entering their XY coordinates. Let’s say my mechanical drawing is done and I know I need mounting holes at X=1.5in and Y=1.5in. If my origin is in the top left and I randomly place my PCB at X=1.125 and Y=3.243, I’m absolutely going to have to do math every time I need to place a component based on the relative location of another one.

Is there a way to move the origin to the bottom left of the board or am I just out of luck here?

2

Internally KiCad always uses coordinates from the upper left corner of the paper. You can (almost completely) disable the paper and it’s border (there must be some graphics on it) and then just use that origin.

You can also use: PCB Editor / Preferences / Preferences / PCB Editor / Origins & Axis and then use the drill origin or the grid origin and change the direction in which the axis increment. The Drill and grid origins are movable and you can put them anywhere on the canvas.

1 Like
3

Aha! Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted.

4

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