Working with a Board Realistic View Object on a Draftsman Document in Altium Designer

Parent page: Draftsman Objects

A placed Board Realistic View where the view angle has been taken from the PCB editor using the Camera Position option.

Summary

A Draftsman Board Realistic View is a scalable 3D graphic of the current board design generated by the software’s 3D rendering engine, as applied in the PCB Editor and for 3D print outputs. Its graphic style elements are configurable in the Properties panel.

Availability

Board Realistic Views are available for placement in a Draftsman document in the following ways:

• Choose the Place » Additional Views » Board Realistic View command () from the main menus.
• Right-click in the drawing design space then select Place » Additional Views » Board Realistic View () from the context menu.
• Click the Board Realistic View option () on the additional view objects drop-down on the Active Bar located at the top of the design space. Click and hold an Active Bar button to access other related commands. Once a command has been used, it will become the topmost item on that section of the Active Bar.
  
• Click  on the Drawing Views toolbar (click Views » Toolbars » Drawing Views).

Placement

After launching the command, 3D drawing data is generated and retrieved from the source PCB file, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and the rendered Board Realistic View is attached to the cursor. Move the cursor to the desired position then click to confirm the placement.

Graphical Editing

Both the position and size of placed Board Realistic View may be graphically modified.

• A selected Board Realistic View will show editing node handles at each corner of the selection outline, which can be dragged to modify the view's size. The view's dimensions will remain proportional while being resized unless the Maintain Aspect Ratio option is unchecked in the Properties panel.
• To move a Realistic View, click within the selection then drag and drop it to a new location.
• As a Realistic View is being dragged, press the Spacebar to rotate the object in 90° increments.

Drag a selected Board Realistic View to change its position. Drag its resize nodes to change the drawing scale.

Non-Graphical Editing

Properties page: Board Realistic View Properties

The non-graphical method of editing a Board Realistic View is available in the Draftsman Properties panel, which provides a range of editable properties, options and design content settings for placed Draftsman views.

The Properties panel when a Board Realistic View is selected.

To open the Properties panel and access the properties of a placed Board Realistic View:

• Double-click on the Board Realistic View object in the design space.
• Right-click on the Board Realistic View then select Item Properties from the context menu.

If the Properties panel is already active:

• Click on the Board Realistic View object to access its properties in the panel.

To manually open the Properties panel, select View » Panels » Properties from the main menus or click  at the bottom right of the design space then select Properties from the pop-up menu.