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gerber2blend

Copyright (c) 2022-2024 Antmicro

gerber2blend is an open-source utility dedicated to generating 3D models of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) in Blender (.blend) format. The tool uses Gerber (Gerber RS-274X) input files that are used for producing physical PCBs. This makes the PCB visualization independent from the software used for designing it. Currently gerber2blend supports Blender 4.1+.

Installation

Requirements

gerber2blend depends on the following packages:

• gerbv (recommended >=2.10)
• inkscape >= 1.2
• python3.11, pipx

Additionally to preview and modify the generated .blend file Blender 4.1 needs to be installed.

Installation (Debian)

1. Install the dependencies:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt install gerbv inkscape python3.11 python3.11-venv pipx
   

2. Configure PATH:

   export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH
   

3. Clone and install gerber2blend:

   python3.11 -m pipx install 'git+https://github.com/antmicro/gerber2blend.git'
   

Usage

Please check the gerber2blend documentation for more guidelines.

To show available functionalities of gerber2blend, run:

gerber2blend --help

For more information regarding Blender supported by the gerber2blend visit the Blender 4.1 documentation.

License

The gerber2blend utility is licensed under the Apache-2.0 license.