Re: gEDA-user: More eye-candy

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 08:56 +0200, Link wrote:
> Whoa, that's awesome! Are there any plans to add support for realistic 
> component meshes? The ability to show someone the final product without 
> ever touching a component would be awesome.

Well, to be honest.. I was thinking of trying that, and the screen-shots
I posted were as far as I had got. Adding 3D models requires:

1. Parsing of a suitable model format
2. Existence of some models
3. (Possibly some depth sorting before rendering if we use translucency)

Alternative methods would be to export something to an external
renderer, such as povray or blender. In all cases, lack of decent models
is the main obstacle.

> Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it shouldn't be _too_ 
> difficult to add code for; the 3D component model would just need some 
> metadata to state where, in 2D space, each pin/pad is, the pinnumber of 
> each of those pins/pads, a single coordinate for the vertical pin/pad 
> location for all pins/pads (since it's safe to assume all components can 
> fit on a plane), and a reference to the filename of the 2D footprint the 
> model fits to. The default rotation for the models should be the same as 
> for their matching footprints to minimise the post-processing needed, 
> and from there on it's trivial to line up the first pin/pad of the model 
> with the first pin/pad of the footprint. The DRC code to test pin 
> alignment and model collisions also wouldn't be amazingly complex. 
> Another benefit of this all is that allows a height parameter for DRC.

It gets complex quickly, doesn't it!

> But blergh, now I'm rambling about something that probably won't happen 
> anyway.

Well - if I can get the GL rendering engine in at some point, perhaps it
is something others can play with as well as me. My time is a bit
limited.

Best wishes,

Peter C.




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