No possibility to set origin (0, 0) for components placement

[Mariusz]

I need to set base pin as origin (0, 0) for components placement. I need it for LED placement on cooridinates I got from a draftman.

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5071368100_1526156809.png

There is something to set the origin for component placement:

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7190188900_1526156728.png

But it doesent work...

Now the LED should have a (0, 0) because it's placed directly on positioning pin.

But the LED have bad coordinates... (67, 137,5) instead of (0, 0)...

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/2616058700_1526156943.png

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5869811400_1526157034.png

Could you please improve one of the most important feature (possible for every other EDA software) also in KiCad?

Thank you and best regards
Mariusz Ciszewski

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

My suggestion is to add missing currently compponent to footprint properties window.

Under the "absolute location" coordinate component should be added "relative location" coordinate component.

Please see my proposal on the attached picture below.

Then could be possible to place a component into a valid coordinate (relative for example to housing positioning pin).

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

Currently (when I would like to to it in KiCad) I'm forced to do use Excell to calculate relative location to absolute location:

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9215975000_1526205354.png
https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/1771718900_1526205835.png
https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/8424700400_1526205914.png

Please help me to avoid using Excell and let me to set relative coordinates for selected component directly... -> https://launchpadlibrarian.net/370020128/4809843900_1526199678%5B1%5D.png

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

Please note the topic was deeply discussed here:
https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/viewtopic.php?p=17217727#17217727

And the conclussion is this is fast and easy to introduce (translation on the fly from relative coordinates to absolute coordinates) via "footprint properties" window.

No any complicated engine or file format change is necessary - just small improvemend for footprint properties are enough.

[Andrzej Wolski (awolski)]

Hi Mariusz,

check out "Position Relative To" and "Move Exactly" commands in right click menu (when footprint is selected).
They will do what you need.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

I will check it, then I will confirm if this works correctly. Please wait for my feedback here. Thank you.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

Hi Andrzej.

It doesn't work correctly... Just look:

I set the Grid origin on housing base pin:

https://i.imgur.com/1AzoabO.png

Paralelly (to be sure) I set also origin for components and drills output:
https://i.imgur.com/6pSVU6H.png

As you can syy my origin are:

https://i.imgur.com/T6wExt3.png

Now I click on the component:

https://i.imgur.com/QgxH1ZF.png

Then I select anchor item:

https://i.imgur.com/BxY9nmt.png

to get the result:

https://i.imgur.com/ZcB34kY.png

Then I apply:

https://i.imgur.com/VjRUALU.png

Diemnsions follow mechanical drawing:

https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9215975000_1526205354.png

And what I get???

Component was placed on a complete different place:

https://i.imgur.com/GBUG3ME.png

It's absolute coordinates are now:

https://i.imgur.com/VEV97Hc.png

So it looks this functionality is completly broken. It doesn't work.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

Please note if I move to (11 ; -33,05) instead of (11 ; 33,05) according to cartesian coordinate system, then my component is placed almost correct:

https://i.imgur.com/CvHA8QF.png

But not fully correct, because my component got absolute coordinates:

https://i.imgur.com/6WqoyhP.png

So (78 ; 104,4825) instead of (78 ; 104,45) it should get...

Let's calculate:

relative origin: (67 ; 137,5)
relative (to relative origin) follow mechanical drawing ( 11 ; 33,05 )

Translation from relative to absolute:

x absolute: 67 + 11 = 78
y absolute: 137,5 - 33,05 = 104,45

So build in KiCad works inproperly:

1). direction of y was recalculated in a bad direction ("down" instead of "up")
2). KiCad calculated 104.4825 instead of 104,45

So currently my excell file works recalculation much better than build in (but broken) KiCad functionality "position relative to"...

Someone should improve.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

Mentioned excell file - see attachment

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

See also my kicad_PCB file (attachment)

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

"Move exactly" works much better:

before:
https://i.imgur.com/MXel1mU.png

after:
https://i.imgur.com/E5t5ij9.png

So for "move exactly" calculations are almost ok (only the sign from "-" to "+" should be changed for y- direction because now it is not according to cartesian coordinate system.

It's easy to improve (because it's "on the fly" operation). So I think it (sign) should be improved for next KiCad release.

[Nick Østergaard (nickoe)]

For the coordinate signs, it is still cartesian, it is just see from the bottom as is done for screen coordinates.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

In my opinion this is really easy to improve (only y sign change luring translation on the fly from relatibe to absolute) to make it fully compatibile with cartesian (increating right and top direction from the selected relative origin).

In my opinion It makes no sense to keep KiCad absolute grid direction for relative tools (like "move exactly") which could be fully ready to work witch mechanical drawings from draftman's which usually starting their measurement based on base point located on left bottom corner.

So my conclusion and proposal is:
1). let's keep current KiCad global measurement (starting from top left corner)
2). Lets change it in translation tools like "move exactly" to be fully in accordance with standard mechanical drawing and dimensioning.

[Mariusz (mariusz-ciszewski)]

And the second (other) topic - this is really strange for me the calculations done by "position relative to" which looks like a broken one (follow: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1770897/comments/8)

Arn't the tools "move exactly" and "position relative to" a very similar tools but in compare to "move exactly" which work quite nice, the "position relative to" made mistakes during translations / calculations?

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

We're tracking this in https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1773638.