See our previous post How to get list of all footprints using KiCAD pcbnew plugin Python API and How to get all selected footprints using KiCAD pcbnew plugin Python API for more info on how to obtain a footprint object.

Once you have a pcbnew.FOOTPRINT object, you can get its graphical elements (which are basically the lines, rectangles, circles etc in the footprint – but not any silkscreen labels) using

footprint.GraphicalElements()

Example:

for graphical_element in footprint.GraphicalItems():   
    print(graphical_element)

Output:

<pcbnew.FP_TEXT; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_TEXT *' at 0x7fc47f2c41e0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f0f10b0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c69d0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c6d30> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f0f10e0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c6cd0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c6ca0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f0f38d0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c68b0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c41e0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f0f10b0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c69d0> >
<pcbnew.FP_SHAPE; proxy of <Swig Object of type 'FP_SHAPE *' at 0x7fc47f2c6d30> >

You can filter them using

fp_texts: list[pcbnew.FP_TEXT] = [
    item for footprint in selected_footprint.GraphicalItems()
    if type(item).__name__ == 'FP_TEXT'
]
fp_shapes: list[pcbnew.FP_SHAPE] = [
    item for footprint in selected_footprint.GraphicalItems()
    if type(item).__name__ == 'FP_SHAPE'
]

In our previous post, we showed how to get all selected objects using the KiCAD python API using

pcbnew.GetCurrentSelection()

You can simply filter these entries to obtain just a list of selected footprints using either a for loop with inline filtering:

for selected_object in pcbnew.GetCurrentSelection():
    if type(selected_object).__name__ == 'FOOTPRINT':
        print(selected_object.GetReference())

or using a list comprehension:

selected_footprints: list[pcbnew.FOOTPRINT] = [
    footprint for footprint in pcbnew.GetCurrentSelection() if type(footprint).__name__ == 'FOOTPRINT'
]

Complete plugin example:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import pcbnew
import os

class SimplePlugin(pcbnew.ActionPlugin):
    def defaults(self):
        self.name = "Plugin Name as shown in Pcbnew: Tools->External Plugins"
        self.category = "A descriptive category name"
        self.description = "A description of the plugin and what it does"
        self.show_toolbar_button = False # Optional, defaults to False
        self.icon_file_name = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'simple_plugin.png') # Optional, defaults to ""

    def Run(self):
        board: pcbnew.BOARD = pcbnew.GetBoard()
        footprints: list[pcbnew.FOOTPRINT] = board.GetFootprints()
        
        # TODO Do something useful with [board]
        for selected_object in pcbnew.GetCurrentSelection():
            print(selected_object)

SimplePlugin().register() # Instantiate and register to Pcbnew

Example output (excerpt):

D39
D32
D23
D37
D18
D34
D11
D15