I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.
This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.
I wonder how one imports DXF on copper layers into KiCAD7 and upcoming KiCAD8. @maui posted excellent material on that six years ago, but it was for KiCAD4 and KiCAD5. I wonder whether the same process would be applicable to KiCAD7 today and KiCAD8 in a couple of months. In particular, I am interested in importing (on copper) patch antenna structures; they will be filled zones, but with slots (keep-out areas) within some of those zones.
Select your DXF file, select your copper layer and import it . . .
You might have to do a little trial and error with the Import scale (especially if changing between Imperial and Metric) Grouping items and line widths all to suit your needs.
you could convert them to tracks and/or zones (select lines–>RMB-click–>context-menu–>Create from selection)
with v8 you also could connect graphical items to other tracks/nets (doubleclick graphic item–>item properties dialog opens–>use “Net” field). This is a newly added feature.
the DXF parameter “line width” (from shown last picture) has normally no effect, as the dxf-importer uses the linewidth embedded in the dxf-file (written by the exporting program). This parameter is only useful for old dxf-files which have no width-information at all.
If you use a modern MCAD tool to export the DXF, the DXF will contain units information. Simply export it and KiCad will import it exactly and unit conversion handled on the fly as needed.
The import scale is not meant for unit conversion, though you can if your MCAD tool is not good.
kicadStepUp is still usable to create this kind of footprints. The output format would be in kicad 5, but kv7,8 is able to import and convert this format in the new one.
kSU is also able to load kv7,8 fps in FreeCAD.
@mf_ibfeew: Thank you and everybody for responding. I think you also need to select “geometry” because otherwise the graphics will be imported as a—useless—image. Anyway, at work I imported a DXF shape into the front copper layer as geometry. The shape came in fine. I am sure it was closed. I had to ungroup it to get the option to convert it to a zone to show up. However, KiCAD7.0.10 (running on Win11) did not convert the closed shape to a zone. I cannot share the DXF file because it legally belongs to my employer.
