Traces with square ends

The same issue applies to the graphical lines used in silk screen as well.

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer, just interested.

Can you give concrete examples? Pictures?

It id possible to get this with the microwave tools. Please examplify your exact use case.

@Gioele,

Keep in mind we're not into graphics design software business, that's why we don't have Bezier curves or gradient fills in the PCB editor :) Line caps are quite difficult to implement in DRC, polygon filling or P&S algorithms...

Tom

I could see it being useful when running a trace (say) of width 2mm horizontally into an SMD pad of height 2mm and width 1mm - currently you get a bit of trace poking out of the other side of the pad, which decreases clearances, looks untidy and generally gets in the way.

Perhaps this can be solved without having to modify the trace caps. Perhaps with some kind of "dangling end" handling that spots when the cap projects outside of the pad.

If you're trying to construct special geometries like RF gaps or something, either the microwave tools (such as they are) or the FP editor are probably better choices.

Silk screen lines are less important IMO, as silk rarely has precise requirements, and most of the time the screen thread count gives

....a lower bound on the sharpness of corners anyway.

At the moment its a legacy thing from when gerbers would be traced out by a light based system, the beam of light is round, and so the traces where round, the real way you can get around this for now is to neck down to a smaller trace or use zones,

For precise microwave stuff, I would probably be using zones anyway as you can then define custom corner radiuses

"At the moment its a legacy thing from when gerbers would be traced out by a light based system, the beam of light is round, and so the traces where round"

AFAIK, this is false: the shape of the beam of light was defined by the selected aperture primitive shape and its size (24 different apertures were allowed, regardless they are flashed or drawn), that can be a rectangle, or some other primitive shape.
Of course, when the aperture is not round, the result can be a bit strange.

The actual reason is given by Tomasz: managing a pen shape that is not round is really tricky, for a really poor interest.

Here you can find some screenshots showing why round edges are problematic, especially when connecting thick track to square pads:

* https://forum.kicad.info/t/changing-track-end-style-settings-in-pcbnew-square-end-traces-supported/2409

* https://forum.kicad.info/t/designing-high-current-traces-with-vias/7359

And some requests for the same feature:

* https://forum.kicad.info/t/wishlist-request-maybe-line-ends-are-always-round/5751

* https://www.allpcb.com/sns/KiCad/2016-08-08_1_10_518_How%2Bto%2Bchange%2Btrack%2Bend%2Bstyle%2Bsettings%2Bin%2BPcbnew~3/rpllst.html

BTW, out of nerdy interest, why are non round line ends problematic? Actually the question should be: why are non-round ends more problematic DRC-wise than tracing a polygon to connect two points?

Just make that request a variation of Teardrops.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/593972

See also: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1833688.

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2250