I recently upgrated to 5.1.0 from 5.0. When I want to create copper planes using the right bar tool (below vias), I have a pop-up saying " The legacy segment fill mode is not recommended. Convert zone to polygon fill ?".
First I don’t understand the message. I tried to google and browse the doc, but did not found answers.
Second, answering Yes or No, I can create the copper plane, It gets hatched, but it does not connects the pads of the net nor “fill”.
I’m a newbee, so I can miss obvious things here. But I believe that with 5.0, I already did the thing correctly.
Segmented fill means the zone is filled with a lot of traces instead of a polygon. This was how zones where made in very early kicad versions as polygons where not supported back then. Support for this mode has been left in because nobody bothered to check if it even makes sense anymore. (The guys behind gerber suggest to never use this mode at this point in time.)
You should therefor select to fill with polygon mode. If there does arrise an issue afterwards then report that as a bug. (The conversion is new to 5.1.0 and could have bugs in it.)
What is strange to me, is that I don’t see from where is selected the filling mode (polygon or lines), and why polygon is not the default, and the reason for the pop-up.
I would be very happy to " default" polygon filling and no pop-up.
It is also not so clear what will happen if I tick “do not show again” : will it continue with to fill with lines ? Will it convert to polygons ?
Once this clear, I will post a bug if I still have an issue.
In v5.1 there is no selection needed as it always is polygon for newly created polygons. Only past kicad releases supported segmented and polygon was the default for a very long time. You get that dialog because you opened a project where some zones where created in a past kicad version with segment fill selected manually.
new created copper zones get the alert message, and if Yes answered to transform to polygon fill, the new zone is hatched, but not filled (and pads not connected),
if I select all old copper zones and say YES to transform to polygon filled zones, it stays the same,
if I delete all old copper zones, it stays the same,
if I create a new project from scratch, I can create copper zones that get filled.
I found your project on dropbox, and only downloaded the pcb.
(Please remove backup and other redunant files next time and zip the project)
I moved a corner of the biggest zone and I do not get any error message, and I never had them before either, I’ve never seen a zone filled with tracks (traces?) in KiCad.
I notice nothing special on your board (Except that there is no board outline defined!)
Maybe the zones got automatically converted on import. I attached the board, as saved in my KiCad V5.1.0. I have not checked the pcb in a text editor to look at changes etc. noname.kicad_pcb (685.6 KB)
Application: pcbnew
Version: 5.1.0+dfsg1-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh2/1.8.0 nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.19.0-4-amd64 x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.67.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.64.0
Compiler: Clang 7.0.1 with C++ ABI 1002
I do not need anything.
I agree with being carefull with deletinge “useless” stuf while bug huning.
I noticed the file I uploded here (see my previous post) is 63kb smaller (and posted that on launchpad). Can you open that file, and does your bug persist in that file?
I suspect the old zones are supposed to be converted automatically when openening or saving the file, and that did not happen for some reason in your project.
The devs might however which is what nick meant. (Backup files can give hints how a project got to that state.)
And the original owner might as backups could get them back to a working state if a true bug damaged the real files.
Most definitely not! There should never be a change to the file without direct user interaction (The suggestion you made was vetoed by wayne so i suspect he agrees with me on this point of view)
I generally agree that automatic conversions are usually bad. So without speculating is simply observe that the file shrunk with 63kB after moving a single corder of a zone and saving it. This 63kB difference has discouraged me from comparing differences in meld,
Every segment (line) of a segmented zone is stored inside the pcb file. (Yes strangely they are stored in the file not calculated when needed.)
Every such line takes a full line in the pcb file format (with a header, start and end point descriptor and line with stored for each such line. This full block is removed when converting to polygon fill.
I did not convert ( not explicitly at least )
I just:
opened the file, dragged a corner of the zone, and saved it again.
I did notice the file has quite a lot of zones, which may have all or partially been “changed”.
I’m not trying to solve this ( I don’t have enough background nowledge) I just noticed the 63kB file size change was noteworthy.l
So we have two options: It got converted implicitly by that action (would be bad) or changing the zone geometry made it require far less segments to be filled.
Not sure it can help, but I revereted to KiCAD 5.0, and I do not have the problem anymore
Application: kicad
Version: (5.0.2)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.68.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.61.1
Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013
I apologize for the bad shape of the design, but I ran in my issue during a major update of the design to modify the footprints of the output inductors, which then derived in the need to reshuffle the power supply section.
The dropbox version was not the reference one
I’ll try to keep a version as near as possible of the one posted with the bug (if it can help at some point).
Euhm, no!
Your dropbox version is the only reference the people on the other end of your internet cable have, and is therefore by definition THE reference for this bug.
I have no interest in diving into this, but still find the 63kB file size difference peculiar, and it should be easy to reproduce by downloading the .kicad_pcb from dopbox, opening and saving it again.
