Altium to KiCAD converter for PCB and schematics
Convert Altium Designer projects to KiCAD with this neat altium2kicad plugin
KiCad conversion for your Altium project:
Additionally, this program is offered online as a service: http://www2.futureware.at/KiCad/
Install the git client on your computer (using apt-get install git, for example), then download the program. Go to the directory where your.PcbDoc and.SchDoc files are located and execute:
- perl unpack.pl (it unpacks the .PcbDoc and .SchDoc files into subdirectores)
- If the Altium design contains 3D models in step format, run kicadd_oce_vis or step2wrl or FreeCAD to convert the files to wrl (with FreeCAD open and execute the macro step2wrl.FCMacro )
- perl convertschema.pl (it converts the schematics from the subdirectories to .sch and -cache.lib files)
- perl convertpcb.pl (it converts the PCB to .kicad_pcb files)
This converter cannot guarantee the quality of the conversion due to the significant differences between Altium and KiCad, the lack of fileformat documentation, and the high complexity of the fileformats. Please check the converter's output. If this converter does not work for your files, please send me your files and screenshots of how they currently look and how they should look, and I will do my best to assist.
Current limitations of this converter:
- Design Rule Check settings are not converted
Currently known Limitations of KiCad:
- Bezier curves for component symbols -> WONTFIX -> Workaround with linearization
- Multi-line Text Frames
- A GND symbol with multiple horizontal lines arranged as a triangle
- Individual colors for single objects like lines, ...
- Ellipse
- Round Rectangle
- Elliptical Arc
- Rigid-Flex
- Octagonal pads not supported
- Arcs with a larger line thickness than the radius from Altium designs break the the VRML export
- STEP(STP) file support -> Will be fixed in the future, intermediate Workaround: Conversion with stp2wrl or FreeCAD
More info about altium2kicad plugin, just follow the link below:
Altium to KiCAD converter for PCB and schematics