Configuring Draftsman Board Realistic View Object Properties in Altium Designer

Parent page: Board Realistic View

Draftsman object properties are definable options that specify the visual style, content and behavior of the placed object. The property settings for each type of object are defined in two different ways:

• Pre-placement settings – most Board Realistic View object properties, or those that can logically be pre-defined, are available as editable default settings on the Draftsman - Defaults page of the Preferences dialog (access from the  at the top-right of the design space). Select the object in the Primitive List to reveal its options on the right.

• Post-placement settings – all Board Realistic View object properties are available for editing in the Properties panel when a placed Realistic View is selected in the design space.

The Realistic View default settings in the Preferences dialog and the Board Realistic View mode of the Properties panel.

Size

• Width/Height – enter a new dimension to resize the object view. The size setting initially defaults to 100mm for the board’s maximum side dimension.
• Maintain Aspect Ratio – when this option is checked, the image dimensions will remain in proportion when the object is scaled by entering a new Width or Height, or by dragging the object's selection nodes in the design space.

Title

• Title – the title name string that will be displayed (if enabled) with the Realistic View object. Use the associated button to toggle its visibility. Enter the title name and any desired system/custom parameters to create a meaningful name for the placed view. See the Parameters section in the Properties panel's Document Options mode for a list of the currently available parameters.
• Location – use the drop-down to choose from a range of relative locations for the title. The Manual option is automatically selected if the title is manually moved (dragged and dropped to a new location).
• Font – sets the displayed font used for the view's title string.
  • Use Document Font checkbox selected – the title font used is that defined by the document options. See the Document Font entry in the General section of the Properties panel when in Document Options mode.
  • Use Document Font not selected – use the drop-down menus to choose the desired font type (Font) and size and select the lower buttons to enable text attributes. The associated color button () opens the color selector where the font color can be specified by RGB or HEX value, by freeform selection, or from a range of presets. Note that the slider control sets the color Opacity level where 0% represents full transparency.

Properties

• Rotation – set the rotation angle of the Realistic View in 90° increments.
• Variation - select a project PCB Variant (if available) as the data source for the Realistic View. The Document:xx option is a variant specified for the document under Document Options in the Properties panel (Source section).
• View
  • Top – select to render the view from the top side of the source board design.
  • Bottom – select to render the view from the bottom side of the source board design.
  • Custom (Properties panel only) – select to enable the  button, which will cause the rendered view to adopt the PCB Editor’s current 3D positional view; see example.
• View Configuration (Properties panel only) – click the button to cause the rendered view to adopt the View Configuration settings that are currently applied in the PCB Editor 3D view as defined in the editor’s View Configuration panel; click to see example.