30350n/pcb2blender

The pcb2blender workflow lets you create professionally looking product renders of all your KiCad projects in minutes! Simply export your board as a .pcb3d file in KiCad, import it into Blender and start creating!

It lets you focus all your time on actually composing and lighting an interesting scene, skipping all the boring cleanup work that would be required without it.

Its quick export/import times also make it viable to create renders of WIP boards or to update them, after last minute board revisions.

Usage

1. Hit the Export to Blender (.pcb3d) button in pcbnew.
2. Import the file in Blender via File -> Import -> PCB (.pcb3d)
3. Start creating awesome renders!

Installation

Exporter (KiCad)

• (not available yet) via the builtin plugin manager
  Tools -> Plugin and Content Manager -> Plugins -> pcb2blender

• (manual) Download the pcb2blender_exporter.zip from the latest release, unpack the plugins directory from it into your KiCad Plugin directory and rename it to pcb2blender_exporter.

Importer (Blender)

• (manual) Download the pcb2blender_importer.zip from the latest release, install it in Blender via
  Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install
  (you need to install the actual zip file, don't unpack it!) and enable it (enabling the addon for the first time will take a few minutes).

Note on python version (Linux and macOS)

On Windows, KiCad and Blender both ship with their own bundled python version (python 3.9 for KiCad 7.0 and python 3.10 for Blender 3.4). On Linux/macOS, depending on the exact flavor and packaging/installation method used, either software might just use your systems python version directly. If you run into any issues, make sure you're running python 3.10, first.

Other Projects

• The protorack-kicad KiCad library, contains all the custom symbols and footprints I use for eurorack module development.

• The svg2blender workflow enables you to export 2D graphical designs from Inkscape to Blender. It's mainly intended for use with front panel designs, but could be used for other things as well.

Credits

• The name of this project is inspired by the awesome svg2shenzhen Inkscape extension by badgeek.

• The PCB Shader node setup this addon comes with is inspired by the stylized-blender-setup repository by PCB-Arts.

License

• This project is licensed under GPLv3.