Using custom 3D Models

I contribute to the kicad libraries. I have KiCad using the symbols and footprint folders that I sync with Git. I generally have them on the master branch, and I add my own branch when contributing, and revert back to master.

Any thoughts on the best way to have custom 3D models (that don’t meet license requirements) in my projects? If I download them and add them to a footprint, it would then cause issues when trying to contribute as footprints would have various 3D models associated with them. In some cases, if the 3D model happens to be the same format (eg. STEP) as the manufacturer provided format, I can rename the manufacturer file and put this in the appropriate 3D source location. But, Moore’s law, the 2nd 3D model I downloaded was a STEP file, and KiCad referenced a WRL file - it was not happy if I just changed file extension on it.

I could copy the footprint to a custom library and do the work, but that would become rather annoying quickly I think.

Failing a solution, is there anything planned for v6 that would address this use case?

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