Replicate layout test project

KiCAD Replicate Layout Plugin (KiCad 10 fork)

[!NOTE] This is a community-maintained fork of MitjaNemec/ReplicateLayout, updated to work with KiCad 10. The original author retired the plugin at KiCad 10 (KiCad now ships native multichannel layout), so this fork keeps it running for hierarchical-sheet driven replication. All credit for the plugin goes to doc.dr. Mitja Nemec; it remains GPL-2.0.

Changes in this fork:

• KiCad 10 support (issue #87): KiCad 10 removed pcbnew.ID_V_TOOLBAR, which the dialog used for positioning, so the plugin raised on every run. Fixed with a fallback that still works on KiCad 9.
• Grouped-destination crash (issue #86): the destination-group precheck compared a PCB_GROUP object to a string and aborted whenever a destination footprint was already grouped. Fixed.
• A working, headless test-suite (the upstream one referenced absent folders) that verifies geometric correctness and byte-for-byte parity with KiCad 9.

The replication core is unchanged — verified to reproduce the KiCad 9 behaviour exactly (see Testing).

The repository includes code for KiCad Action plugin which replicates part of the PCB layout.

Replicate the PCB layout of one hierarchical sheet to other hierarchical sheets. This replication is based upon hierarchical sheets in Eeschema. The basic requirement for replication is that the section to be replicated (source) is completely contained within a single hierarchical sheet, and replicated sections (destination) are just copies of the same sheet. Complex hierarchies are supported and the replicated sheet can contain subsheets. The plugin replicates footprints, zones, tracks, text and drawings.

After the section for replication (source section) has been laid out (footprints, tracks, text objects and zones placed) you need to:

1. Place the anchor footprints for the destination sections you want to replicate. This defines the position and orientation of replicated sections. You can use the PlaceFootprints action plugin for this.
2. Select the same anchor footprint within the source section.
3. Run the plugin.
4. Choose which hierarchical level you wish to replicate.
5. Select which sheets you want to replicate (default is all of them).
6. Select whether you want to also replicate tracks, zones and/or text objects.
7. Select whether you want to group replicated footprints/tracks/zones/text/drawings by hierarchical sheets.
8. Select whether you want to replicate tracks/zones/text which intersect the pivot bounding box or just those contained within the bounding box.
9. Select whether you want to delete already laid out tracks/zones/text (this is useful when updating an already replicated layout).
10. Hit OK.

By default, only objects which are fully contained in the bounding box constituted by all the footprints in the section will be replicated. You can select to also replicate zones and tracks which intersect this bounding box. Additionally, tracks, text and zones which are already laid out in the replicated bounding boxes can be removed (useful when updating). Note that bounding boxes are squares aligned with the x and y axis, regardless of section orientation.

Installation

The preferred way to install the plugin is via KiCad's Plugin and Content Manager (PCM). Installation on non-networked devices can be done by downloading the latest release and installing in the PCM using the Install from file option.

Testing

The plugin ships with a headless, GUI-free test-suite driven entirely through the pcbnew scripting API (test_replicate_layout.py). It runs a number of replication scenarios (inner/outer hierarchy levels, flipped anchors, "contained" vs. "intersecting" selection, removal of existing copper, grouping and footprint-text replication) and checks each result two ways:

1. Geometric correctness — every replicated section must keep the same internal geometry (pairwise distances, relative orientation and relative flip) as the source section. This check is independent of any coordinate convention.
2. Regression against KiCad 9 — the produced geometry is compared against reference signatures captured from KiCad 9 (committed under test_refs/), so a passing run proves the KiCad 10 output matches KiCad 9 exactly.

Run it with the Python interpreter bundled with KiCad, for example on macOS:

/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app/Contents/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin/python3.9 test_replicate_layout.py

To recapture the reference signatures from a particular KiCad version, run the same command with --gen-refs.

Author : doc.dr. Mitja Nemec KiCad 10 port : 2026 Date : 2025