Altium Releases the 14th Update to Altium v10

Altium has just released the 14th update to Altium Designer Release 10.

Some of the notable enhancements include:

Variant Support added to the STEP exporter

• Export mechanically accurate variants of the PCB assembly directly to 3D Mechanical CAD tools.

DXF/DWG Added to Outjobs

• With the addition of DXF/DWG export support in Outjobs, now you can automate the creation of this common output format and share settings across multiple projects.

Improved handling of duplicate pad names on a PCB component (Footprint)

• Resolve net allocations to duplicate pad names within a PCB component. This is most helpful when using PCB packages with thermal pads that have been given the same name as other pads on the component.

Smoother cycling between designated routing layers

• Add an additional layer of rule protection by ensuring that only layers permitted by the design rules can be selected during interactive routing; even if prohibited layers are also visible.

• These items (and more) were fixed in response to items requested by customers through BugCrunch. To those Subscribers who submitted, nominated and voted in these reports we thank you once again for your assistance and we look forward to further community contributions. Just take a look at all the other features we’ve been able to accomplish together since the launch of Altium Designer Release 10.

A new CTRL+Drag mode for the schematic editor

• Position graphical objects such as component designators, comments and parameters more accurately.

Optimisation of the “Find Partial Matches” stage of the Design Synchronizer

• The “Find Partial Matches” stage of the Design Synchronizer is used when performing comparisons between two designs, two stages of a single design, or two design libraries. Optimisations to this portion of Altium Designer has led to performance improvements of over 2 orders of magnitude in some cases.

Schematic Notes can be hidden during printing operations

• Notes are a great way of keeping track of changes required in an evolving design, but can be a real distraction when creating client printouts. Now you can hide notes when creating print or PDF outputs.

Dimensioning Capabilities improved for Embedded Board Arrays

• Dimensions referenced to an Embedded Board Array are now automatically refreshed when a design containing an Embedded Board Array is opened.

High-resolution control of Electrical Rule checking in schematics

• Finely control the suppression of Electrical Rule errors for specific nets and objects at the schematic level.

• So if you haven’t looked at AltiumLive for a while, hop on now to read the Developer Blogs, get involved in the Forum discussions, and check out the latest BugCrunch requests that are feeding into the development of everything else that is coming down the pipe.

911EDA provides PCB layout services using Altium Designer.  We also offer Altium Designer training courses – both comprehensive and advanced.  Visit www.911eda.com to learn more about our services.