Translating Altium to KiCad (altium2kicad) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: opello
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 30, 2014, 04:00:07 am
content: I was going to reply tothis threadbut there was a warning about its age.During31c3there wasa presentation for the Fernvale project, which is trying to support a development environment for the Mediatek MT6260 SoC. However near the end of the talk (about 57m) there was a question about CAD tools andthe altium2kicad projectwas mentioned. They said it seems to work forbunnie's Novena projectschematics and PCBs. I've not tried it yet but it seemed like something this community might be able to get some benefit from and possibly improve.

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2015, 09:35:30 pm
content: I'll have to give this a try when I've got an afternoon free. The process seems a bit cumbersome to say the least.

author: ElektroQuark
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2015, 10:41:35 pm
content: One of the steps is converting the STEP files to WRL with FreeCAD to feed KiCAD. I have never be able to do that. It looks like KiCAD can't handle FreeCAD WRL files.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2015, 08:08:36 am
content: Altium to KiCad? Does it work?Altium is going to release a lower cost version, and file formatbcomoatibility could be very interesting for KiCad. Altiim with Circuit Studio is going to compete with Eagle, DipTrace, gEDA and KiCad.

author: ElektroQuark
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 05, 2015, 06:18:40 pm
content: Checking Circuit Studio price it can't compete.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2015, 09:54:42 am
content: True about price, but maybe there will be student licenses and give it away to universities. This will make KiCad less popular, unfortunately.I see many nice designs done I'm Altium I wish I could modify in KiCad, but vendor lock-in is putting me off.

author: thesourcerer8
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 30, 2015, 09:48:51 pm
content: I am the developer of the Altium2KiCad converter.The converter is currently able to handle most of the files, not just Bunnie´s files. Most schematics are converting fine, the 2D PCB layout is nearly done, the 3D PCB is still work in progress.If anyone finds files that cannot be converted with it, please let me know.I was recently given a converter for STEP->WRL files which I will try to integrate soon, which would replace FreeCAD in the conversion process, that should make the whole process much easier and fully automatable.I was thinking about offering the converter as a web service, if it is really too difficult for people to install and use it themselves.I would appreciate any help and feedback, if you notice anything that could be converted better.

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 01, 2015, 11:13:36 pm
content: If you are looking for more test files you can use Robert's i.mx6 Rex project.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2015, 04:00:06 am
content: Any progress report?It would be amazing if merged into KiCad!

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 06:16:56 pm
content: Any news?

author: crispy_tofu
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 11:52:52 pm
content: Looking at the Github page, it hasn't been touched in months...

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2015, 01:34:45 am
content: I see...Anyway, I see file format interoperability as an important goal.EDA provides lots of vendor lock-in by using proprietary file formats. In order to counter act, a joint effort between FOSS EDA tools and maybe small EDA developers should be done.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2016, 01:46:42 am
content: I did see some activity...https://github.com/thesourcerer8/altium2kicad/Two months ago