Suggestion for importing DXF drawing

[PCB_Wiz]

I also found this interesting work, but for footprints, which seems to use a external python DXF parser

DXF to Kicad footprint conversion, python script (alpha)

Conversion of DXF polygons to Kicad Footprint with Python: Summary: a. Attached is a code to convert DXF rectangles, circles and isosceles right-angled triangles to Kicad footprints, of type rectangle, Trapezoidal (the triangles), circular, and circular through-hole vias. b. The designer should break the drawing to appropriate pats. Limitations: a. Only the following pad shapes are recognized: Rectangle (any angle), Right-angle isosceles triangle (trapezoid with maximum delta, any angle), …

dxfgrabber · PyPI Code
https://pythonhosted.org/dxfgrabber/ DOCs

@cbernardo

At the moment all width is imagined to be 0 and assigned whatever the kicad line default is. Until a few months ago even the units weren’t properly checked.

Filled regions introduce all kinds of problems and more specialized code is needed to handle them well. Perhaps one day in the future when we have a well-defined API for pcbnew we will be able to rewrite the DXF importer. For fills we need to (a) assign a net name or specify no net, and (b) handle region growth correctly if the boundary width is not 0. For (a) we cannot simply give a default because that would be a convenient method to introduce design faults and for (b) we might need an improved geometry kernel.

I can understand the complex end of the scale, but maybe there are small steps that can be taken ?

eg a tickbox could allow Widths inside DXF to be imported, or even a DXF-local-default width that can be different and more obvious, than KiCad default width.

Currently, in kiCad Layout there is no means to select many line-elements and edit Width.
I can select-many and Copy, but cannot change Width.

Those two effects conspire to make importing DXF-tool-paths for example, much harder than they need to be.

Likewise, net-name can be given a default in the DXF import form, and edited later.
At least this gives a place-holder, that kicad can leverage off.
Fill support would need polygons to be preserved, not exploded into line segments.

Again, here KiCad allows multi-select and Copy/move but no edit.

Also, KiCad does not allow easy jump between polyline entity - they are very similar in the DXF and Kicad_pcb files, but Fill and Keepouts cannot be inter-changed - eg if you import zones via DXF, and they arrive OK as closed polygons, but some are Fill and some are Keepouts, it is easier if you can select/retype inside kicad.

I would sidestep the complex region growth issue, by applying the rule that DXF Zones are outlines
ie to me DXF can expect to know about X,Y,LW,LayerName & of course Line/Polyline but any region growth is managed inside kicad by a later line width change (possible now)