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kicadScripts

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

Work inspired form the following projects:

*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

alt-text

alt-text

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, )