Comment 10 for bug 1460460

+1

I'm new to KiCad but not to PCB design, and am quite impressed with the power of KiCad for a FOSS tool! That being said, it is hard to exactly place a footprint which is often needed to mate with a mechanical part.

Typically, I see the lower left corner of the board being used as a reference point for DXF/IDF/IDX import/export and component placement. This means that manual calculation, mentioned above, is required. Or when using Move Exactly the part needs to be placed twice: the first to set a reference and the second using Move Exactly to get the final location.

IMO, the relative origin ("space bar") is useful when checking dimensions but it's not helpful for placement. A workaround would be to enhance the Move Exactly command so that it can place with respect to the relative origin. This could be as simple as a "From reference origin" checkbox on the Move Exactly dialog. While I mention this as a workaround for this particular issue, I think that's a great feature that's worth it's own wishlist item.

While the page layout origin can be changed, that's a hurdle that I expect many users won't discover and certainly won't like. And even if the page layout had an origin elsewhere, that origin won't apply for all board sizes and shapes.

Allegro and PADS allow the origin to be moved and, as I understand the issue, a moveable origin seems the best solution in KiCad as well.

FYI: Yes, Pro/E can import and export IDF. Even better, it can handle IDX (similar to IDF but with change/reject control and incremental addition).