Working with a Region Object on a Draftsman Document in Altium Designer

Parent page: Draftsman Objects

A placed Region shape with ANSI fill

Summary

A Region is a closed shape object that can be placed on a Draftsman document sheet to indicate a specific area in a drawing. The Region object shape can include angle-based curved lines, and a solid color or ANSI pattern fill.

Availability

Regions are available for placement in the Draftsman Editor as follows:

• Choose the Place » Region command from the main menus.
• Click the  button in the graphic 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.
  
• Right-click in the drawing design space then select Place » Region from the context menu.
• Click the  entry in the graphic objects drop-down menu () on the Drawing Annotations toolbar (View » Toolbars » Drawing Annotations to enable).

Placement

After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and the editor will enter Region placement mode. Placement is made by performing the following sequence of actions:

1. Click to place the first vertex of the Region shape.
2. Move the cursor then click to place the second vertex of the Region shape.
3. Continue to place further region vertices to complete the Region shape.
4. After the final vertex is placed, right click or press Esc to complete the Region shape back to the first-placed vertex.

Straight lines will be drawn between each vertex as they are placed, however, the Shift+Spacebar shortcut can be used to cycle through other line options such as a 90° corner, 45° corner, curved 90° corner or curved 45° corner. Once an option is selected, use the Spacebar to toggle the direction of the corner.

► Region placement options demonstration.

Graphical Editing

This method of editing allows a placed Region object to be selected in the design space and graphically edit its size, shape or location.

Select a Region by clicking on its fill or outline. Once selected, editing handles/nodes are available at each of the shape's vertices:

A selected Region shape is edited by dragging line or vertex nodes.

• Drag (click+hold+move) any part of the Region, but not a node, to reposition it on the document.
• Drag a corner vertex node to move it to a new location and alter the Region shape.
• Drag the center mark of a line to move that line in the perpendicular (maintaining its angle), to a new location.
• Ctrl+drag a node to delete it from the shape or press Delete while dragging a node to delete it from the shape.
• Ctrl+drag on a line, but not its center mark, to add a new node.

Non-Graphical Editing

Properties page: Region Properties

The non-graphical method of editing a Region is available in the Draftsman Properties panel, which provides editable property fields for the item that is currently selected in the design space.

The Properties panel when a Region is selected.

To open the Properties panel and access the properties of a placed Region:

• Double-click on the Region's perimeter or fill.
• Right-click on the Region's perimeter or fill then select Item Properties from the context menu.

If the Properties panel is already active:

• Click on the Region's perimeter or fill to access its properties in the panel.

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