Working with the Draftsman Board Fabrication View in Altium NEXUS

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Parent page: Working with Views

A Draftsman Board Fabrication View is an automated graphic composite of the PCB project's unpopulated (bare) board, as viewed from the Top or Bottom. The drawing data is sourced from a specified physical board layer, and polygon copper fills can be displayed as solid, hatched or as simple outlines. Its drawing representation and data sources are all configurable in the Properties panel.

Draftsman Fabrication views can be displayed from either side (or flipped) and be rendered with solid or outlined copper fills.
Draftsman Fabrication views can be displayed from either side (or flipped) and be rendered with solid or outlined copper fills.

A Fabrication view for the nominated project PCB is placed in a document by selecting the  button on the Active Bar, or via the Place menu options. After launching the command, drawing data is retrieved from the source PCB file, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and the rendered Fabrication View is attached to the cursor. Move the cursor to the desired position then click to confirm the placement.

Note that drawing data is retrieved from the PCB document specified in the Source section of the Properties panel when in Document Options mode. To change the panel to that mode, deselect all objects in the design space (click in free space).

Both the position and size of placed Board Fabrication View can be graphically modified.

A selected Board Fabrication View will show a node handle at the top right of the selection outline, which can be dragged to a new location to modify the view's size. To move a Board Fabrication View, drag and drop it to a new location.

Drag a selected Board Fabrication View's resize node to change its scale.Drag a selected Board Fabrication View's resize node to change its scale.

Displayed layers

A Board Fabrication View will display the layer graphics and color that matches the specified view Layer, as set by the Layer selection in the Properties section of the Properties panel (General tab).

Other board layers may be enabled under the panel’s Layers tab. As with the Board Assembly View, the graphic draw order of selected layers is determined by their listed order, which may be modified using the  and  buttons.

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