Export Silkscreen

[ferdinand.burkhardt]

Hello to all,

my problem is, that I want to import my 3D-PCB from Fusion 360 in Blender via .fbx. Overall, this works pretty fine, but the Silkscreen layer gets lost in the conversion process. My question now is, how can I specifically export the Silkscreen pictures form Fusion 360 or convert the Silkscreen to any visual layer that it is also visible in Blender? I tried it with converting tNames to Pads, but this did not work out.

Thanks in advance,

Ferdinand

[yiqiu.han]

Hi, @ferdinand.burkhardt 

Thanks for raising the problem here. The reason that silkscreen cannot be shown in blender is this translation file format doesn't support image output. If I export the existing 3D PCB to step format and then open in Fusion again, no silkscreen not displayed as well.  This is out of our control and hopes you could understand that.

-Yiqiu

[ferdinand.burkhardt]

Hello Yiqiu,

thank you for your answer. I searched a bit around and found that KiCad makes it very easy to import PCB's in Blender with "VRML" which generates a .wrl/.x3d. Is it likely that Eagle or Fusion 360 will also get this option in the future?

Thanks in advance

Ferdinand

[ritste20]

I don't know how helpful this would be but I believe there is somewhere in the temp directories that you can find the board image stored as a .png file. You may be able to save that and map it as an image in blender if that is the end goal. Refer to message 29 of this thread for some context.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-electronics/cam-preview-snowy-since-last-small-fusion-upda... 

I have never used blender personally. BUT, I know there are many users on the design forum that are experts with it and could help you over there.

Otherwise, you could turn off the physical component packages and render the image of the board from an orthographic view for top and bottom.

Regards,

[ferdinand.burkhardt]

Hey Steve,

thanks for your effort, but I convert my .brd now in KiCad and from there I use the "VRML" which generates a .wrl/.x3d. This is overall the easiest way, and I hope that Fusion 360 will also get this feature when the time has come.

Thank both of you,

Ferdinand

[yiqiu.han]

Hi, @ferdinand.burkhardt 

I guess your requirement is viewing/rendering 3D PCB in Blender, right? I have also no experience in Blender but I suppose there's a feature like the "decal" command in Fusion. Attach the PNG file generated with 3D PCB might be a way to solve the problem. You could fetch the locally cached PNG silkscreen information for the recently generated 3D PCB here:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\1\Neutron\ElectronFileOutput

For the support of data formats you mentioned, I can't make any promise here since the usage of them is pretty low.

Thanks,

Yiqiu

[ferdinand.burkhardt]

Hi, Yiqiu

yes, I think that would work, but I was not able to find the folder. There was no folder named "1" for me. Did I miss anything?

Thanks in advance,

Ferdinand

[yiqiu.han]

Hi, @ferdinand.burkhardt 

The folder name might be different for every device, so let me clarify my steps:

1. Type in "%temp%" in the windows folder to go the temp folder

2. Go to subfolder....\Neutron\ElectronFileOutput

3. Navigate to the latest updated folder to look for the silkscreen images 

Note: All cached images would be deleted if you close Fusion

Thanks,

Yiqiu