as some already might noticed, I started working on an Altium Board importer, which is integrated in KiCad. This happens more out of curiosity than real need from my side ;). The current code can be found in this PR: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/merge_requests/60/
Please note, the current version is in an alpha state (There might be Dragons), and most things do not work yet. Nonetheless, this is a current image of an imported LimeSDR Board:
No NETS assigned (I’m still searching where and how to parse)
Footprint sometimes have wrong pads, draw-segments attached
Many pad primitives are not correctly parsed
Board only has two layers on import (can be manually changed after import)
Don’t even think about design rules
…
If you are curious about the internals of Altium, now is your time to shine and help with the reversing efforts . I document the binary format using https://kaitai.io and you can find the specification in the PR. I have not started decoding the textual format contained in the *.PcbDoc but this should be easier to acomplish.
I know its not the point of your post but your board looks awesome man the RF section looks like a piece of art and also the rest is tightly packed and all nicly in order.
One can see the effort ooze out…
I know that, and it’s amazing somebody started it.
It was meant as an answer to “Why not require the user to add a netlist file to the project first and just use that?”, should be “Why not require the user to add a netlist file to the project first and just use that, for now?”
I think the current state of the importer can be seen an minimum viable product prototype. I added support for NETs, Footprint anchor, detect board layercount, simple zones, and some bugfixes.
Bugs you will likely see:
Pad shapes “sometimes” wrong
No Zones (with exception of some rectangular ones)
It seems I missed some internal object handling stuff, because after save + load some UX problems are fixed.
Because I do not own Altium, it would be nice to get reports if things like dimensions and position of the elements are correct. Same with net-names and layer assignment.
I got first reviews, and the importer improved a bit:
support of roundrect and octal pad shapes
text improvements (line thickness, alignment, mirroring,…)
hide footprint designator / comment if specified in the boardfile
initial support for polygons
Next things to tackle:
Layer stackup
Design rules (at least know some clearances, soldermask,…)
supporting Planes?
keepout, hatched zones
interpolate arc tracks
more pad shapes (non-round hole, hole offset, …)
more via types (blind, burried,… )
…
Because I do now own any Altium Product, it would be nice to have testfiles created by the community to support reversing. If your are interested, please generate Altium files where a single property is changed (like hole-diameter x/y). In case of the hole diameter example, place 4-5 different sizes on the board, and put a text label next to it denoting the measures. Ideally, also add a screenshot for comparison.
Based on such files, I can do black-box reverse engineering and find out how data is encoded.
For testing, Altium can export PCAD files, which KiCad can import.
You can then compare the results.
Overall, PCAD -> KiCad works quite well, I’ve found issues in more subtle settings like zone fill priority, but the design rules & net names import ok.
An other option is to test the result comparing with the gerber files… often open hardware projects do offer the gerber files beside the altium source file.
Funny thing: At FOSDEM, I was given the idea to check if Altium Circuit Studio uses a similar file format than Altium Designer (well, it’s basically the same software base). Guess what, I added initial support for Altium Circuit Studio .
Basically, Altium changed the directory names in the compound file format, but everything else looks exactly the same. The only thing differing to the Altium Designer importer for now is a wrong layer stackup, because it’s hardcoded right now in my code. When I fix this, both importers should work the same (hopefully)
UPDATE: Altium Circuit Maker uses a similar file format as well, thus I added initial support as well.
Hi,
I’m just migrating medium complexity project to Kicad. I’d like to try your importer. Is it included in nightly builds/is there windows binary somewhere? Thank you!
. I document the binary format using https://kaitai.io and you can find the specification in the PR. I have not started decoding the textual format contained in the *.PcbDoc but this should be easier to acomplish.
the RF section looks like a piece of art and also the rest is tightly packed and all nicly in order.
.