Choosing the Variant in an Output Job File
Contents
Related article: Design to Manufacturing
Altium Designer allows you to drive the outputs of your PCB project using the base (non-varied) design, or by nominating the use of a defined variant of that design. With the ability to define configurations for a PCB project, the way in which you scope a variant to be used to drive the outputs has now been enhanced.
Setting the Variant Scope
When configuring your Output Job file, you can either choose a variant per applicable output, or choose a single variant to apply to all applicable outputs in the file. The variant scope is determined using the Variant Choice options at the top of an Output Job file.
If you are using project configurations, variant choice is specified at the PCB Configuration level, outside of the Output Job file.
The following sections take a closer look at the different variant scopes.
Choose a different variant for each output
With this setting for the variant scope, you indicate which variant to use for each applicable output in the Output Job file, on an individual output basis. Using this scope setting you can, should you wish, assign different variants to drive different outputs.
This variant scope setting is the same behavior as seen in the Summer 09 release of Altium Designer (and earlier). Output Job files created in such releases of the software and subsequently opened in Altium Designer 10 (or later) will have this individual output-level variant scope setting applied by default.
Choose a single variant for the whole output job file
With this setting for the variant scope, you simply choose a single variant to drive all applicable outputs in the Output Job file. After enabling this option, you need to specify the variant in the drop-down field to the right. The drop-down lists all defined variants for the active project, as well as the entry [No Variations].
To drive outputs using the base (non-varied) design, simply choose [No Variations] from the drop-down field.
Choose the variant in a PCB Configuration
In this case applicable outputs will be driven, at release time, by the variant specified for a PCB Configuration that uses the Output Job file to generate its outputs – that is, has the Output Job file assigned to it.
As the PCB Configuration controls the variant to be used, and multiple PCB Configurations (using possibly different variants) can use the same Output Job file to drive their outputs, this variant choice is made purely from the PCB Project Configuration Manager.
If you generate output from an Output Job file directly, without performing a formal release, the variant choices configured within the output job file will be used when driving all outputs.
Driving Fabrication Outputs
Main article: Driving Fabrication Outputs using a Variant
As part of a variant's definition, you have the option of specifying whether or not that variant is allowed to drive fabrication-based output. This option has the following ramifications when nominating which variant is used to drive outputs from the file:
If the chosen variant does not allow the variation of fabrication outputs, and the variant is specified for use with a fabrication-based output, the variant entry in the Output Job file will be red, and a hover-tip used to alert you to the situation. This warning is flagged when using the
An example warning for invalid use of a variant to drive fabrication-based output.Choose a different variant for each outputsetting only.
- For fabrication-based output generators, generation of output using the chosen variant will proceed as though the setting
[No Variations]had been chosen. That is, the base (non-varied) design will be used as the source of the output.