Hi folks, The latest IDF code has been checked for coding style and tested for bugs. The patch I created will only make changes to the utils/idftools directory, so it's safe to include in the main branch and won't affect the rest of KiCad at all.
The code is currently used only for the various IDF tools, but I intend to rewrite the IDF export code and VRML export code to make use of this new(er) codebase; among other things this newer codebase fixes a number of bugs which I have found in the VRML and IDF export code. I would appreciate some comments on what to do with this code in the future. I would like to see it compiled as a shared library so that the VRML and IDF exporter as well as the IDF tools can make use of it without the bloat of static libraries. Since the code will only be common to the pcbnew exporters and the IDF tools, I thought that the IDF framework code would be best placed in an 'idf' directory in the top of the source tree if/when it is finally included in KiCad. In principle the new IDF code will also make it pretty easy to add an IDF importer, but since no one has requested such a tool and I don't need it, I haven't bothered to write such a thing. I tried to build and link the IDF code as a shared library but the linking of idf2vrml failed with undefined references; after banging my head on the desk wondering why cmake wasn't doing what I expected it to, I gave up and built as STATIC. If anyone can see what I've been doing wrong I'd appreciate some feedback on that. The patch, which includes 3 IDF files to demonstrate the idf2vrml converter tool, is available at: github.com/cbernardo/kicad-patches The patch file is kicad_idftools.patch Features of the new IDF code: + full support for reading and writing IDFv3 files; exported files are strictly compliant with the standard, with the possible exception that blank lines are allowed for human readability (the standard is silent on this). + the IDF object is structured so that it's relatively easy to create IDF elements from KiCad elements and vice-versa. + IDFv3 support only. If anyone required IDFv2 support, it is in principle possible to extend the IDFv3 code to support this as well. + can stand alone: in principle this means that anyone else (gEda for example, or FreeCAD) can use the IDF code to implement IDF support in their software. The idf2vrml converter: + can convert IDFv3 files into VRML files for visual inspection by the user. This allows ECAD users to check the files before sending them to MCAD users. + can write out VRML files which can be used as input to KiCad - Cirilo _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
