Add mirror around horizontal and vertical axis functions to Pcbnew and Footprint editor

[Gabriel Staples]

Application: pcbnew
Version: 5.0.0-rc2-dev-unknown-f73b9a5~65~ubuntu14.04.1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.2
    libcurl/7.35.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1f zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.28 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.4.0-112-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.2 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 2.24
    Boost: 1.54.0
    Curl: 7.35.0
    Compiler: GCC 4.8.4 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

---------------------------------

In Eeschema you can use the x and y keys (or right-click menu) to mirror parts around the horizontal and vertical axes, respectively (see screenshot of the menu). This feature would be really nice in Pcbnew and the footprint editor too, *including* for custom polygons and things!

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Screenshot.

[Fabián Inostroza (fabianinostroza)]

I would not like to accidentally mirror a footprint in pcbnew, maybe it could show a warning when mirroring a footprint. For other graphical objects it might not be necessary to warn.

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Fabian, I see your point. Most footprints you at most need to flip (for the backside copper layer) and rotate. However, I still think my request is a good wishlist add on (with your recommended warning if mirroring a footprint), because it A) speeds up the creation of new footprints if you can mirror polygons and other shapes (I just made a couple capacitive touch slider "virtual" footprints and put them on my public GitHub pg and this would have been really nice) and B) allows you to mirror these virtual footprints (and others you may want to mirror) to your liking (since nothing is soldered to touch pads for instance) when placing them.

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Here's my footprints I'm talking about for instance:https://github.com/ElectricRCAircraftGuy/eRCaGuy-KiCad-Library/tree/master/ercaguy-footprints.pretty.

Mirroring the polygons and custom pads would have been really handy! I can also think of cases in Pcbnew where I want this.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

I think we'd also need grouping before this would be terribly useful.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1494079

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Perhaps for many cases, but after turning several polygons plus a pad into a single pad (a form of grouping that works right now) the mirroring features will already be useful today.

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Overall though, yes, grouping would be very nice too.

[Gabriel Staples (ercaguy)]

Any plans to implement grouping and this?

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

The budget for 6.0 is going to be largely chewed up by replacing the canvas, toolset and file format in Eeschema (although the canvas part might happen for 5.1).

From what's left there are several larger PCBNew features vying for attention: groups, more sophisticated design rules, and more complete support for footprints (edge cuts, keepout zones, etc.)

But it's hard to guess how many of those will get done for 6.0.

[Davit Hakobyan (davhak)]

The mirroring is especially useful for PCB antenna which does not have a real part sitting on it so it should be total fine to mirror it around X or Y axes.

Currently i face this problem in Kicad 5.1 and because there is no way to mirror the footprint i will need to do repositioning of a complete block to a worse place on PCB.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2168