(Absolute KiCad newbie…) The component is a microcontroller pcb. What is the red cross at its center?
Yes.
Do you have a question?
Yes, I was editing the prematurely closed OP. Question: what is the meaning or function of the red cross?
It is the “anchor point” of a footprint. If you set the coordinates of the footprint to (0, 0), then this cross will be at the current origin of coordinate system. It is also the center of rotation when a footprint is rotated, and when editing a a footprint, all other coordinates (lines, pads, texts etc) have coordinates relative to this point.
For most SMT footprints, it’s location is in the center of the footprint, but for most THT footprints, it is at the pin 1 location. KiCad always draws black holes in the centers of THT pads (only texts go over it) and as a result you can not see this anchor point in most THT footprints.
Also, when texts are selected, they show a line to the anchor point of the footprint they belong to. This lets you easily see to which footprint a certain text belongs. Below I selected 3 text strings of a DIP-14 footprint.
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