Alex, in another thread while discussing another topic (importing DXF) you mentioned how to change a "Shape" to a "Board Outline" which is what I'm trying to do right now.



But when I right-click on my "Shape" I do not see a "Convert to board outline" option in my submenu, here is a screen shot of my submenu after right-clicking on my shape:

Not all shapes can be converted to board outline. Only closed shapes can.
If you send your board file to support at diptrace dot com, I will check it and let you know solution.

Ok, sent it.

Hello Brad,

Conversion shape to board outline works for polygons only. Rectangles are not supported at the moment. We may fix it in future, but you can easy create rectangular board outline using "Place Board Outline" or "Objects/ Board Points" tools. It is much easier than draw shape or import DXF file.

Well that's a bit silly IMHO, I hope you guys "fix" that.

IMHO, it's much easier to use the rectangle tool because you can grab the sizing handles (corners and/or middles) and adjust the board outline even right up into the parts layout, much quicker, much easier. With the current (two options you suggest) causes one to either:

1.) perform an arguably clumsy point-by-point creation of an outline
-or-
2.) the need to pre-calculate dimensions, and origin coordinates (which is very clumsy)

instead of just sizing/re-sizing the board shape dynamically? what's the difference between a "shape" and and a "board outline" to the user? using the sizing handles is fairly the defacto "shape creation" default in modern times but more importantly would make the Diptrace UI consistant from one tool to the next.

I had the same problem with this - I was trying to design what was really quite a complex board shape that had internal radius corners, secondary daughter boards connected via break outs - all sorts.

Diptrace advice was to build the board in another CAD program and import the dxf

That seemed a bit of a retrograde step - I was doing complex board shapes in my old DOS pcb layout software years ago -

So what I did was design the board outline on the top assembly layer - complex as you like - I used arcs, and a variety of seperate drawing 'objects' including various drafting lines that were deleted when I finished.

Now Diptrace wont let you use this as a board outline - even if you group the items together (which is a bit sad) - however, once you are happy with the shape you can Export the design as a DXF then turn round and import the resulting file - little bit of tweeking (and making sure you import it onto the correct layer) and that was that.

I agree, this should be simple and straighforward and certainly does let an otherwsie very good product down a little.

-- 12 May 2012, 14:54 --

I had the same problem with this - I was trying to design what was really quite a complex board shape that had internal radius corners, secondary daughter boards connected via break outs - all sorts.

Diptrace advice was to build the board in another CAD program and import the dxf

That seemed a bit of a retrograde step - I was doing complex board shapes in my old DOS pcb layout software years ago -

So what I did was design the board outline on the top assembly layer - complex as you like - I used arcs, and a variety of seperate drawing 'objects' including various drafting lines that were deleted when I finished.

Now Diptrace wont let you use this as a board outline - even if you group the items together (which is a bit sad) - however, once you are happy with the shape you can Export the design as a DXF then turn round and import the resulting file - little bit of tweeking (and making sure you import it onto the correct layer) and that was that.

I agree, this should be simple and straighforward and certainly does let an otherwsie very good product down a little.

Board cutout can be used instead of board outline, it will be exported to Gerber files correctly. But there are few limitations:
1. copper pours will not be filled within board cutout
2. panelization will not work
3. 3d view will not work correctly