3D view of Eagle project.
Generating 3D views of Cadsoft Eagle projects can be done with Eagle3D. Eagle3D generates POV-Ray scrips from Eagle PCB’s. The board and parts can then be rendered in POV-Ray. I have done this to make pretty pictures of the Arduino CC2500 shields.
Relevant links :
Eagle3D main site : http://www.matwei.de/doku.php?id=en:eagle3d:eagle3d
Eagle 3D at BerliOS : http://developer.berlios.de/projects/eagle3d/
Cadsoft Eagle : http://www.cadsoft.de/index.htm
POV-Ray : http://www.povray.org/
Eagle project as a 3D design.
The problem with Eagle3D is that it only generates images. The 3D design cannot be edited and the data can not be used for manufacturing.
A logical solution is to generate a 3D CAD file that can be edited and can be used for manufacturing. The popular choice for product design in the “maker scene” is Google Sketchup. It is extendable in Ruby, and there are are extensions available to export to 3D printers (see Shapeways and Ponoko) and lasercutters via Inkscape and the Faces-to-SVG plugin (see Ponoko).
Gumstix
The people behind the Gumstix have done some work on Eagle – Sketchup integration. Documentation is a bit sketchy and the latest projectfiles are from 2009.
Relevant links :
The Eagle and Sketchup scripts : http://pubs.gumstix.com/models/ulp/
Sketchup models : http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?uq=1182539586607624671355485&scoring=m
EagleUp
EagleUp is a set of scripts in Eagle and Sketchup. It generates files and images in Eagle that can be imported with a script in Sketchup.
EagleUp is still in an early version but it is well documented. I plan to use it and have been tweaking the code.
Relevant links :
EagleUp : http://eagleup.wordpress.com/why-eagleup/
Problems.
There are a couple of problems with the Eagle – Sketchup integration.
Precision.
Google Sketchup uses inches as 64 bit floats, precise enough for product design, but has an internal fixed 1 mil (0.0254 mm) tolerance. Faces and lines cannot have points that are closer to each other than this 1 mil tolerance. It is not really in the manual but I found a confirmation here : http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25175&p=219030&hilit=precision#p218989
A discussion on the issue can be found here :
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1209829
To avoid this issue the EagleUp author scales the design x 1000. That will not matter for the pictures but it could complicate manufacturing and combining parts.
Parts.
Eagle3D has a huge amount of parts available, Matthias Weißer made it possible to make a part parametric and uses one model for say, all pin headers with 4 up to 50 pins. EagleUp parts are Sketchup models and there are only a few available.
Hi, just like to inform you that I investigated EagleUp after finding it through among other places this site. I’m now helping Jerome and we have got a good way towards a new version and I would like to invite you and everyone else out there to checkout and participate in the continued development of EagleUp at
https://code.google.com/p/eagleup/
Some of the key features already implemented on top of the official release is:
* Automatic generation of front and back PCB images
* Automatic alignment of the board images.
* User specified scale from Eagle to Sketchup (use real scale in Eagle and scale it up by 1000 for instance to handle the precision problem)
We also hope to be able to make the import directly from within Sketchup from a Eagle Board file in a single step before releasing the next official version.
Kindest regards,
//Erik
Thanks Erik,
This is good news, i’d like to try out the new version.
Ivo
It is actually possible to generate SketchUp models, here is one I’m working on to generate TSSOP packages: https://github.com/trygvis/quad-esc/blob/master/SketchUp-plugin/tssop.rb
Hi Trygve, the link seems broken..
Here is a BRANDNEW and much easier solution.
Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO96K5xgd50
The EAGLE to 3D ULP: http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppus/service_downloads.html
The IDF to 3D tool: http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppus/info_idfto3d.html
Hi – check out the newest solution from the pcb-pool website.
Now you get a STEP and a 3D-PDF file from your EAGLE bed file for free and with just a mouse click.
http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppuk/order_productconfiguration_js.html
would please guide me to submit my link on your site?that is http://www.rushpcb.co.uk