KiCad to Blender 3D model workflow
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.
Export to Blender (.pcb3d)
button in pcbnew.File -> Import -> PCB (.pcb3d)
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
.
pcb2blender_importer.zip
from the
latest release,
install it in Blender viaEdit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install
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.
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.
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.