AddingArtwork

FOSDEM talk about SVG2Shenzhen

Twinkle Twinkie gave an excellent talk about his awesome PCB art

Installing

1. First off you'll need Inkscape installed.
2. Then you should install the SVG2Shenzhen extension for Inkscape. If you've got a version of Inkscape before 1.0 then you should install SVG2Shenzhen release 0.2.17

On Linux, if you're getting an error with v0.2.17 with it not able to find the .kicad_mod file, make sure the bitmap2component_linux64 file in the Inkscape extension folder has the executable permission set.

Creating Kicad Modules of Your Artwork

As an example, we'll rework the PCB design from the DesigningMyFirstBadgeLife tutorial.

1. Run Inkscape

2. Create a new document

3. Prepare the document by choosing Extensions -> Svg2Shenzhen -> 1. Prepare document... from the menu. Set the document width and height to a little larger than the artwork you want to import into Kicad—for the example 100mm by 100mm. Click Apply and then Close.

   

4. Import your artwork into the document. You can either do this by copying and pasting it from elsewhere or by choosing File -> Import... from the menu, finding the SVG to import—in this case Rudolph.svg—and then choose the "Include SVG image as editable object(s) in the current file" option.

5. Next decide which layers you want to use. Shift-Ctrl-L will bring up the list of layers. Make sure that the layers you want don't have "-disabled" at the end of the name, and the layers you want to exclude do have "-disabled" at the end of their name. Rename them accordingly. I usually leave the Edge.Cuts and Drill layers enabled, even if I'm not using them. For the example, we'll be using the Edge.Cuts and F.SilkS layers.

6. Choose which layer you need for each bit of the artwork: select the element of the artwork; right-click; choose Move to Layer...; pick the relevant layer. Favour darker colours over light ones, because SVG2Shenzhen creates the layers by placing each against a white background, so more contrast is better. For the example, move the teal area to the F.SilkS layer and the black deer outline to the Edge.Cuts layer. It should look like this:

   

7. Save your design. The filename you use will also be used for the finished Kicad module, for example, if you save your design as my-logo.svg you'll end up with a Kicad module called my-logo.kicad_mod. For the example save it as Reindeer.svg.

8. Create the Kicad module:

   1. From the menu, choose Extensions -> Svg2Shenzhen -> 2. Export Kicad...
   2. Enter the path to where to save your artwork Kicad module. Picking the same location as your Kicad project is the easiest option. FIXME Check this will show up properly
   3. Choose Export layers as... KICAD - Module
   4. You can leave the rest of the options as is.
   5. Click Apply to create the new kicad_mod file. It might take a few moments to generate the module, once that's done you can close the dialog box and also Inkscape.

Using Your New Kicad Module

1. Run Kicad and open your design. For the example you can open the project in Rudolph

2. We'll need to configure the footprint libraries paths so that it can find your new module. Choose Preferences -> Manage Footprint Libraries... from the menu and switch to the Project Specific Libraries tab in the dialog.

3. Click the + icon to add an empty row to the table. Then fill in the Nickname as Project (because these are modules local to the project) and the Library Path as ${KIPRJMOD}/:

   

4. Click OK to close the Footprint Libraries dialog and then open PcbNew.

5. Choose the Add footprints tool and click somewhere to add a footprint.

6. Find the Project library and choose the Reindeer footprint.

7. Place it into the board in a suitable location.