Hi All

Fairly new to Diptrace - happy so far with the schematic etc but I am running into confusion with the board outline in PCB.

Basically I have outlined the board I wish to creat - fairly complex shape so I've marked it out with lines on the top assy layer. All good so far. Mow I come to layout the board outline I have dropped the board more or less coresponding to my top assy lines - my plan is / was to just pull the point of the board outline to match my top assy guide. But... I'm having all sorts of problems selecting board points - trying to select them just selects top assy lines and I can't see how to selectivy leave out the top assy?

IS it me or is the board layout system on Diptrace being deliberatly obtuse and hard to use?

Any pointers happily recieved

Thanks
Peter

It can be annoying... If you look at the "Object" tab in the sidebar to the right, you can choose "Selection only" in the dropdown selector. Then untick the things that you don't want to be selectable.

I have requested earlier that you should be able to hold down Ctrl (or something), then click on a checkbox to make only that checkbox checked. ie. Ctrl+check unchecks everything else. I hope they implement that. It would make this feature faster to use. Then you could just Ctrl+check the "board" checkbox, and only the board outline would be selectable.

In your case, probably just unchecking the "Assy" box should do it!

Hope it helps!

Hi Peter,

You wrote to DipTrace support and I answered you how to convert shape from assy to board outline. It may be interesting for other users, so I duplicate my suggestions:

Change shape layer from top assy to board cutout first. You can do it from shape properties window (right click on it and select properties from submenu). After that, you will be able to change board cutout to board outline. Right click on the shape and select "Convert to board outline" in submenu.

Hi Peter,

I have used a few pcb programs... OrCAD PCB Designer... PADS... and Diptrace..

All of which do not have a great board outline dwg system..

Many of the board outlines I have done... have been complicated. Many radiuses... many board cutouts... chamfers.. and so forth..

Have always used a AutoCAD like program to do the board outlines.. and then imported them into PCB program via dxf.. Much easier and frustration level is minimized.

How does one get an imported (DXF) pattern to appear in PCB Layout as a board outline?

I have a DXF of a complicated board shape, in PCB Layout "File" menu I see "Import", click on that, and in the "Import DXF" screeen/dialog (which shows my pattern) but when I click the "Import" button nothing happens.

The dialog box dismisses but I don't get/see the pattern in the work area of PCB Layout.

Hows it done?

(Edit) in fact I just tried to import a DXF of a Neutrik jack (downloaded form Neutrik website) just now in Pattern Editor and didn't get anything either, is the DXF import function broken?

You did not select "Convert to" for any DXF layer I think.
When "Import DXF" screen appears, select a DXF layer, then click on "convert to" box and choose board outline layer. More info can be found in DipTrace tutorial.

It turns out that the "NEW/ADD" drop-box was my problem, it's defaulting to "NEW", when I changed it to "ADD" it imported my DXF shapes as expected.

Weird behaviour really, when one is already in a project and expects to import (add) a shape because they selected "Import DXF" from the menu, one would expect "ADD" to be the actual default behavour ...since that is what the user is trying to do.

-- 07 May 2012, 17:13 --



I don't seem to have the context-menu item you name "Convert to board outline"

Here is what I meant (see picture).

Conversion from board cutout to board outline should work for closed polygon. If you have multiple lines or/and arcs, it will not work.

Ok I've got that, I probably should have started another thread as my 2nd question was asking about changing a shape to a board outline.

I'll start another thread to eliminate the confusion here of these two topics.

Aw come on devs, why cant we just have one normal interface for editing board outline without all these dances and quirkiness ?
I've suggested this before and will suggest it one more time - unified interface for all layers and all objects:
1) Arcs - ability to specify radius, center, angles, not just 3 points, give us that and we will stop asking how to do this or that.
2) More mechanical layers, with arbitrary objects on them.
3) Moving any object to any layer (why can't I have thick lines in board cutout layer ? Why text is in a box on route keep-out ?)
List goes on and on...