Total Courtyard area info

[greg_m]

Hi all,

Is there any way to find out a total Courtyard area (total for all the components on the PCB)?

Many thanks

[Heath_Raftery]

Interesting idea for real estate estimate purposes. Is that your use case?

If there was a way to get a single courtyard area, then getting the total would be a very simple python script. But I don’t know if there is one.

[BlackCoffee]

@greg_m

s there any way to find out a total Courtyard area (total for all the components on the PCB)?

I’m still using v7 (and don’t intend to upgrade).

In v7, I do this to get Area:

For object of interest:
• On a Copper-Layer of your choice, Draw a Polygon-Shape to match the desired outline
• Select the Shape you just created
• Right-Click it and Create a Zone from it
• Select the Zone, Right-Click, Fill Selected

The Area will display at bottom of PCB Panel…
Multiple Zone Areas are not Additive so must do individually (and get out your calculator…)

ADDED: you can use other Layers to do it but, not all of them… User Layer works…

[greg_m]

@Heath_Raftery - that’s exactly my use case. Big board with lots of components went through a major updates. Just out of curiosity wanted to find out total Courtyard info before and after.

@BlackCoffee - this is the selected zone area. I use it already, but for different use case. What I asked for is a total Courtyard area - all components Courtyard areas added together. They are scattered around the board and with gaps in between them, so drawing a zone won’t work.

[BlackCoffee]

@BlackCoffee

Multiple Zone Areas are not Additive so must do individually (and get out your calculator…)

@greg_m

What I asked for is a total Courtyard area - all components Courtyard areas added together.

Yes, I know what you asked for and I answered ‘they are not additive… get out your calculator’

[greg_m]

@BlackCoffee

Yes, I know what you asked for and I answered ‘they are not additive… get out your calculator’

It’s over 1200 total components, (around 25 different footprint used multiple times).

I’ll think about a script rather than do it manually on a calculator, but thanks for your advise anyway.

[Heath_Raftery]

I had a quick squizz and noticed you can query a footprint for it’s “bounding hull” and its “cached courtyard” which sound encouraging.

KiCad Pcbnew Python Scripting: pcbnew.FOOTPRINT Class Reference

Further, once you have a SHAPE_POLY_SET, finding its area looks very straight forward too:

KiCad Pcbnew Python Scripting: pcbnew.SHAPE_POLY_SET Class Reference

So given that courtyards are by definition not overlapping, on the surface this seems eminently doable.

[Heath_Raftery]

Well that was shockingly simple:

import pcbnew
pcb = pcbnew.GetBoard()

area = 0.0
for fp in pcb.GetFootprints():
    cy = fp.GetCachedCourtyard(pcbnew.F_CrtYd)
    area = area + cy.Area()

area / (pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM*pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM)

Type that into the pcbnew console and away you go?

[paulvdh]

I do know there is documentation on: https://docs.kicad.org/ but now I see for the first time there is documentation about python scripting hidden on that same docs.kicad.org site.

There is a small section about scripting in the PCB manual: https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/pcbnew/pcbnew.html#scripting but that also does not mention the doxygen stuff.

[Heath_Raftery]

Yes, I’ve learnt to keep a link handy. It’s very hard to discover, despite being irreplaceable documentation.

[greg_m]

@Heath_Raftery

import pcbnew
pcb = pcbnew.GetBoard()

area = 0.0
for fp in pcb.GetFootprints():
    cy = fp.GetCachedCourtyard(pcbnew.F_CrtYd)
    area = area + cy.Area()

area / (pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM*pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM)

It returns 0.0, but it a good start. I’ll experiment with this later when have a moment. Thanks!

[paulvdh]

I created a bug report for it:

Add link to doxygen / Python documentation. (#566) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad...

[Heath_Raftery]

@greg_m

It returns 0.0, but it a good start

I ran it on a completed board, that only has components on the front. The number seemed plausible to me (3822mm2 on a lightly packed 100x100 board).

I wonder if a “cached courtyard” needs to be triggered by something.

Anyway, I’ll let you have a play. It will be interesting what you discover.

[BlackCoffee]

@greg_m

It returns 0.0, but it a good start

It is a Good start. And, after deleting Cached from Courtyard, it works (though, I did Not compare to actual Areas… just wanted to check ‘Cached’ issue…

import pcbnew
pcb = pcbnew.GetBoard()

area = 0.0
for fp in pcb.GetFootprints():
cy = fp.GetCourtyard(pcbnew.F_CrtYd)
area = area + cy.Area()

Here’s the Result:
area / (pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM*pcbnew.PCB_IU_PER_MM)
1494.524441916688

[greg_m]

I tried it on a few my projects as well as downloaded from GitHub. No luck. Always returns 0.0.

However I created a new project with two random parts and it gives the result as it should.

Perhaps it’s something to do with older / newer KiCad version used for the project they don’t work. I don’t know, but will investigate.

The script works fine! Many thanks again @Heath_Raftery !

EDIT: Actually it’s very random. I closed and re-open the new project I just made and now also shows 0.0. Will investigate.

[BlackCoffee]

@greg_m

Perhaps it’s something to do with older / newer KiCad version used for the project they don’t work. I don’t know, but will investigate.

I can’t say because I still use v7.

However, for morning Fun while drinking black coffee…
I added Courtyard-Area calc to my Selected-Track’s-Area Plugin.

Tested with Two Courtyards at 25x25mm. I left it such that User needs to select desired Tracks and Courtyards are on Front

Plugin attached - old style so, just put it into the proper folder on your system and Edit the .PNG name to your desired Icon.

my_Area_Calc.py (1.5 KB)

[greg_m]

Many thanks for this.

Tried it on a few different projects and it reposrts tracks OK, but no Courtyards.

Tried selecting them with F.Cu or F.Courtyard layer active. No luck:

It there something wrong with my system (Xubuntu + KiCad 9.0.5)?

What do I do wrong?

I’ll check it on another machine (Win11 + KiCad 9.0.4) after the weekend and let you know.

[BlackCoffee]

I placed a bunch of footprints and all of their courtyards got added… I’m on a Mac.

Perhaps other users can chime-in and help you with Linux and perhaps Windows will work out ok…

The code I posted does Not use ‘Selected’ Courtyard but, perhaps you can add ‘Selected’ to the code and report back…

[gschelotto]

A few years ago, I tried to do something similar with the aim of estimating the available PCB area for a given design.

Plugins to get Statistics of the PCB

In my designs I use a similar statistics script with some details that I find interesting. For example the amount of solder paste that I may need for large manufacturing series or even the component density per layer (TOP / BOTTOM). This last information can be very useful when we have some components in the design and we do not know if they will fit within the area determined by the PCB. The problem is that due to lack of time I have not finished calculating the ‘real’ area, which is not trivia…

[Heath_Raftery]

@greg_m

No luck

How strange!

I started to write down some debugging ideas, but quickly discovered I can reproduce your result!

I have the same project open in a Mac Studio running Sequoia 15.6.1, KiCad 9.0.4, and on a MacBook Air running Sequoia 15.6, KiCad 9.0.4. On the MacBook all is well, on the Mac all the Areas are zero!!

Something fishy going on here…