PCB Object and Layer Transparency

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Modified by Admin on Nov 6, 2013

 

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 PCB Object and Layer Transparency Settings

Offering increased control over the display of objects within the design workspace, Altium Designer provides support for setting the transparency of each object type individually, and on a per layer basis, for each layer that can be used in board design. Through a dedicated Transparency tab in the View Configurations dialog – when configuring a 2D view of the board – configure, experiment with, and fine tune transparency-level settings to suit. Ultimately arriving at a desirable overall 2D view configuration inclusive of transparency settings, that can be applied with equal effectiveness to any board you are designing.

This feature replaces the Use Transparent Layers feature (enabled through an option on the View Options tab of the View Configurations dialog) found in applicable releases of the software prior to Altium Designer 13.0.

Access

Transparency settings are defined on the Transparency tab of the View Configurations dialog (Design » Board Layers & Colors). This tab is only available when viewing/modifying a 2D view configuration.

Although the transparency settings can be defined for any 2D view configuration, Altium Designer features a dedicated default 2D view configuration for this very purpose – Altium Transparent 2D. It is identical in all other aspects to the Altium Standard 2D view configuration. It differs only by its Transparency tab, with example transparencies defined ready. By configuring transparency settings in this dedicated view configuration, you then have the ability to quickly switch between transparent (Altium Transparent 2D) and standard (Altium Standard 2D) views for your board, essentially turning transparency ON or OFF. This view configuration (Altium Transparent 2D.config_2dsimple) can be found alongside all other default view configurations installed with Altium Designer, in the \Templates folder of your installation.

Default transparency settings for the Altium Transparent 2D view configuration.

For the Altium Standard 2D view configuration (\Templates\Altium Standard 2D.config_2dsimple), each object type has a default transparency setting of 0%, across each layer, with the exception of Rooms, which have a default setting of 60%.

The Transparency tab can also be accessed quickly and directly from the PCB Editor's right-click context menu. Simply use the Board Layers Transparency command from the Options sub-menu.

Layers and Objects Involved

The main area of the tab presents a 'transparency grid', with rows representative of each layer, and columns representative of each design object type. Not only does this allow a unique transparency setting to be defined for a particular object across different layers, it also allows different objects to have different transparencies on a specific layer.

By default, only layers in the current board's layer stack will be shown. To show all layers supported for board design in Altium Designer, disable the Only show used layers option.

The layers themselves are grouped by their functional types:

  • Signal Layers – Top Layer, Bottom Layer, Mid-Layer 1-30
  • Internal Planes – Internal Plane 1-16
  • Other Layers – Drill Guide, Keep-Out Layer, Drill Drawing, Multi-Layer
  • Silkscreen Layers – Top Overlay, Bottom Overlay
  • Mask Layers – Top Paste, Bottom Paste, Top Solder, Bottom Solder
  • Mechanical Layers – Mechanical 1-32

Layers that are currently not used in the design have their names and transparency values displayed in gray text. You can still configure the transparencies as required for these unused layers.

When wanting to setup a global configuration for transparencies – that can be used for any board design – it can be a good idea to disable the Only show used layers option, then configure transparency settings for each and every layer. In this way, if additional layers are added to a particular board design, the transparency settings will already be defined and ready for use from the outset.

Defining Transparency

Setting a value for an object's transparency on a single layer is simplicity itself. Select the intersecting cell for the required object and layer, then use one of the controls above the grid to set the transparency – either the slider bar, or the spin control. If using the latter, you can simply type the required percentage transparency directly into the field.

Transparency is set on a percentage scale, in 1% increments. 0% is fully visible (solid), all the way up to 100%, which is fully transparent (or invisible).

Example of setting transparency for a single cell, in this case for Tracks on the Top Layer.

Use the following multi-select controls to select multiple objects, then set a common transparency for them in a single sweep:

  • Ctrl+click to select cells within the same, single column.
  • Shift+click (or Shift+Arrow keys) to select contiguous cells across multiple columns and/or rows.
  • Click&drag to select multiple contiguous cells within the same, single row.

Example of setting transparency for multiple cells concurrently.

To quickly set the transparency for all object types on a specific layer, simply click on the layer name cell to select the entire row, then use the controls to set the desired transparency.

Example setting transparency for all objects on a single layer, in this case the Top Overlay layer.

To quickly set the transparency for all objects across multiple contiguous layers, use multi-select controls to first select the required layer cells, then set the transparency accordingly.

Example setting transparency for all objects on multiple selected contiguous layers, in this case both Top and Bottom Overlay layers.

To quickly set the transparency for a specific object type across all layers, simply click on the object name cell to select the entire column, then use the controls to set the transparency as required.

Example setting transparency for a specific object type across all layers, in this case Regions.

Transparency in Action

The following image shows part of the PCB for the DB46 example design. As you can see, in standard 2D view (Altium Standard 2D), the polygon pours on the top layer pretty much prevent anything from being seen!

Viewing part of a board in standard 2D (Altium Standard 2D view configuration).

The next image shows the result of setting up some transparency settings for various objects on different layers – as part of the Altium Transparent 2D view configuration. By switching to this view in the workspace, the 70% transparency set for polygon pours across layers kicks-in, allowing other objects directly beneath to be viewed, almost like viewing an X-ray. And by tweaking transparency settings, the resulting view of objects could undoubtedly be made more desirable still. The point is, with transparency setting fully configurable, you have the ability to get your transparent view of the board just the way you like it!

Configuring and switching to the transparent 2D view (Altium Transparent 2D view configuration) reveals what lies beneath those top-layer polygon pours.

To get a true view of the mask layers, without Multi-Layer objects such as pads and vias getting in the way, simply increase the transparency of these objects, or make them fully (100%) transparent. This can prove very useful if you are undersizing your mask openings!

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