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

Parent page: Draftsman Objects

Two board Detail Views (right) applied to a Fabrication View

Summary

The Draftsman document Board Detail View feature allows a defined area of an existing drawing to be brought out to a floating, magnified view of its detail. It may be added Draftsman graphical board views such as the Assembly View, Isometric View, Fabrication View, Section View, and Drill Drawing View. The Detail View's magnification factor (scale), labeling and line attributes are all configurable in the Properties panel.

Availability

The Detail View is available when a suitable source board view (see above) has been placed in a Draftsman document. The view placement is accessed from the Draftsman Editor as follows:

• Choose the Place » Additional Views » Board Detail View command from the main menus.
• Click the button in the view objects drop-down on the Active Bar located at the top of the workspace. 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 workspace then select Place » Additional Views » Board Detail View from the context menu.
• Click the  entry on the Drawing Views toolbar (View » Toolbars » Drawing Views to enable).

Placement

When the command is launched the cursor will change to a crosshair indicating Detail View placement mode. The placement steps are:

1. Click at a point on the drawing to specify the center of the target Detail View area.
2. Move the mouse then click to specify the radius of the view area (the Detail View source). The Detailed View will appear floating on the cursor.
3. Click again to set the position of the Detail View expansion.

Graphical Editing

Both the Board Detail View and its source area/size may be graphically modified. To enable its graphic editing mode, click on any part of the graphic representation, including the Detail View expansion, the source area or the connection/leader line. Once the object is selected, the cursor will change to a crosshair to indicate graphic editing mode.

Detail View source:

• To move the view's source area position, click within its perimeter and drag the source to a new location. Note that the cursor will change to a 'move' crosshair () when the cursor is hovered over the source area of a selected Detail View object.
• To change the source area size, click on the source outline and drag to adjust its diameter. Note that the cursor will change to a 'resize' crosshair () when the cursor is hovered over the source area outline of a selected Detail View object.
• If the Detail View object uses a label Leader (Display Mode set to With Leader in the Properties panel), it will show an editing handle that may be dragged to reposition the leader and its label.

Detail View expansion:

• To move the Detail View itself (the magnified view of the source area), click and drag it to a new location.
• To move a Detail View title, deselect the view object (click in free space) then click and drag the title to a new location. Note that the title is part of a view object, and therefore, dragging the title of a selected object will cause the object itself to move – or in this case, the Detail View expansion graphic.

Non-Graphical Editing

Properties page: Detail View Properties

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

The Properties panel when a Board Detail View is selected.

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

• Double-click on the Detail View object in the workspace.
• Right-click on the Detail View then select Item Properties from the context menu.

If the Properties panel is already active:

• Click on the Detail 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 the button at the bottom right of the workspace then select Properties from the pop-up menu.