Altium Designer Documentation
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Retired Documentation - New Feature Summaries
New Feature Summaries (Altium Designer 15.1)
Union Enhancements (New Feature Summary)
This document is no longer available beyond version 15.1. Information can now be found here: Working with Unions for version 25
What is a Union?
There are two classes of objects in the PCB editor, primitive objects and group-type objects. Primitive objects include: tracks, arcs, fills, regions, strings, 3D body objects, pads and vias. Group objects are made up from primitive objects, and include: components, polygon pours and coordinates, amongst others.
There is also another type of group object, referred to as a Union. A union is also made up of primitive objects, the difference is that a union is created as an outcome of a design action being performed in the PCB editor. For example, any set of objects can be selected and a union created from them using the Tools » Convert » Create Union from Selected Objects command, (also available from the right-click Union sub-menu). Or if you place via stitching on the board, the software is able to recognize the stitching vias as a single object because it has automatically created a union for them.
To help manage unions, the PCB panel now includes a Unions mode, as shown below.
Set the PCB panel mode to Unions, then use it to locate, examine and rename a Union.
Unions Mode in the PCB Panel
When the Unions mode of the PCB panel is selected, the panel lists all unions detected in the PCB workspace. The following types of Unions will be listed when present:
| Union Type | Behaviors |
|---|---|
| Drill Table | Click and drag to move, click to select and display resize handles, double-click to open the Drill Table dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| Length Tuning Accordion | Click to select, click and drag on edge/vertex to reshape, double-click to open the Interactive Length Tuning dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| Layer Stack Table | Click and drag to move, click to select and display resize handles, double-click to open the Layer Stack Table dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| Smart Paste (Pasted OLE Object) | Click and drag to move, click to select and display resize handles, double-click to open the OLE Object dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| User-defined Union | Right-click on any object in the union then choose Unions » Select all in Union. Then obeys standard selected object behavior for copying, deleting, moving, rotating etc. Note that standard click will select the object under the cursor, not the union. Right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| Via Shielding | Click to select, double click to open the Add Shielding to Net dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
| Via Stitching | Click to select, click and drag on edge/vertex to reshape, click and drag to move, double click to open the Add Stitching to Net dialog, right-click on the union name in the panel to rename it. |
Query Language Keywords
The following two Query Language keywords are available for working with Unions:
- InUnion - each union is assigned a numeric Index, use this to identify the target union. A list of indices will appear as you type in a number.
- InNamedUnion - each union has a system-assigned name, such as Union 1, use this or the user-defined name to identify the target union. For example,
InNamedUnion('Logo-Altium'), as shown in the image below.
Targeting a union by its user-defined name.