Smart Component Placement (New Feature Summary)

To make component placement easier and more intuitive, component pushing and avoiding is now supported and can be enabled in preferences or during placement. Dynamic alignment snapping for component is also now supported.

Dynamic Alignment

Altium Designer 16's new smart component placement allows for dynamic alignment of components when dragging. Green indicator lines appear when the component is aligned either with adjacent components or with the pads of adjacent components.

By using hotkeys during placement, you can access the following alignment options:

• Press and hold the Ctrl key during component placement to view alignment lines in relation to the boundaries of nearby components.
• Press and hold the Shift key during component placement to view alignment lines by pads of nearby components.

 
Using Shift and Ctrl to align component by adjacent components or by the pads of adjacent components.

Placement Modes

You can cycle through placement modes by pressing the R key during placement.

• Ignore Obstacles - Regular placement behavior, as seen in previous versions of Altium Designer. In this mode, the same component clearance checking routines seen in previous version of Altium Designer are used. These routines use the 3D body, if there is one, or the copper and silk primitives to identify an object's clearance.
• Push Obstacles - The component to be placed will push other components away to provide compliance with clearances between components. Components in unions can be pushed and the location of components in the union may change, but the union will not break. Locked components can not be pushed. In this mode, components are identified by their selection boundary, which is the smallest possible rectangle that encloses all of the primitives in the component.
• Avoid Obstacles - The component to be placed will be forced to avoid violation clearances between other components during placement. In this mode, components are identified by their selection boundary, which is the smallest possible rectangle that encloses all of the primitives in the component.

The status bar at the bottom of the workspace indicates the current placement mode.

Using the R hotkey to cycle through placement modes. Note that the R6 component is locked and cannot be moved in Push Obstacles mode.

Swap Components

You can select a pair of components and easily swap their positions. After selecting the components you wish to swap, right-click and select Component Actions » Swap Components.

Easily swapping components using the right-click menu.