Defining General CAM Editor Preferences for Altium Designer

The CAM Editor - General page of the Preferences dialog

Summary

The CAM Editor – General page of the Preferences dialog includes controls relating to the general settings of the CAM Editor within the CAM design space.

Access

This page is part of the main Preferences dialog that is accessed by clicking the  control in the upper-right corner of the design space then selecting the General entry under the CAM Editor folder.

Options/Controls

Load

• Default PCB Width - use this field to determine the width placement of the origin and how much the initial area will be positive when a new session is started. The extent of a working area is 65" x 65", so any initial positive area between zero and the full extent will be accepted.
• Default PCB Height - use this field to determine the height placement of the origin and how much the initial area will be positive when a new session is started. The extent of a working area is 65" x 65", so any initial positive area between zero and the full extent will be accepted.
• Center image in database - enable this option to ensure that the extents of the loaded entire image are calculated and centered within the CAM document.

Edit/Info/Aperture

• Auto Repeat Functions - enabling this option ensures that repeat editing and drawing functions occur until you either press Esc or choose Cancel from the right-click menu. This option can be useful when you require a series of similar draws or edits and wish to avoid restarting each function manually.
• Display Aperture List in MILS (English Units) - enable this option to display inches in MIL (1 = 0.001") units for all aperture sizes (including DRC, and other features that request sizes to be inputted).
• Object Snap within pickbox (Fuzzy Mode) - enabling this option allows you to snap to any existing endpoints within the pickbox.

Log file generation preferences

• Default log files location - define the default log files location to store generated log files. Click on the button to set the path. Ensure the Enable log file generation option is enabled if you wish to store generated log files.
• Enable log file creation (information, warnings, errors) - enable this option to store generated log files.
• Open log file after process ends - use the drop-down to ensure that log files always open when errors or warnings are found.

Polygon Options

• Select Polygons when Highlights Nets - if you've extracted nets from Gerber data, you may enable this option to select target polygons when related nets are highlighted. For more information on extracting nets, visit the Extract command page.