kicadScripts

A collection of scripts to automate PCB rendering and exporting gerbers.

Work inspired form the following projects:

• PcbDraw
• Scott Bezek's SplitFlap

*I found PcbDraw after I started writting my own tool to do the same function. (I couldn't get lxml to install on windows.)

Usage

Create Pretty PNGs

python plot_board.py <PathToYourAwesomeProject.kicad_pcb>

Create a GerberZip

python plot_gerbers.py <PathToYourAwesomeProject.kicad_pcb>

Files are placed within a plot directory in the folder of the .kicad_pcb file

Features

plot_board.py

• Uses Kicad python bindings to render board layers as SVG
• Recolours SVGs
• Stacks SVGs with user defined colour/opacity
• Creates a drill layer
• Mirrors the backside of the PCB.
• Render to PNG with Inkscape CLI
• Supports multiple colours! (edit colour definition at top of file)

plot_gerbers.py

• creates all the gerber/drill files.
• Renames with Protel Extensions gtl,gts,gto,gml...
• Puts all files into a single zip
• Renames Zip: <Project><Date>_<Time>.zip for easy tracking of versions.

Examples

Improvements

• Generally Cleanup/Improve code
• Plot front and back Images next to each other on the same image.
• Correctly plot SolderMask ONLY over PCB. (currently masked by board outline bounding box.)
• Generate a bare board layer to better render areas without soldermask
• Add more commandline options. (colour choices, output DPI, )