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Parent Page: PCB Objects
A Polygon Pour (brighter red) being used to create a large GND area on a board.
A polygon pour is a group design object that is made up of simpler primitive objects. Polygon pours are used to create a solid or hatched (lattice) area on a PCB layer, using either Region objects or a combination of Track and Arc objects. Also referred to as copper pours, polygon pours are similar to a region except that they can fill irregularly shaped areas of a board as they automatically pour around existing objects, connecting only to objects on the same net as the polygon pour.
On a signal layer, you can place a solid polygon pour to define an area for carrying large power supply currents, or as a ground-connected area for providing electromagnetic shielding. Hatched polygon pours are commonly used for ground purposes in analog designs.
Polygon Pours can only be placed in the PCB Editor. You can place them directly or create them from selected primitives. To place a polygon, switch to the required layer then perform one of the following:
After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and you will enter polygon pour placement mode.
Additional actions that can be performed during placement are:
Press Shift+Spacebar to cycle through the five available corner modes; press the 1 shortcut to toggle placement between two edges or one edge.
As well as interactively placing a polygon, they can also be created from a set of existing track and arc objects that define a closed shape. To define a polygon from an existing closed shape:
The polygon will be created with its Fill Mode set to Outline. Note that the original selected primitives are not removed and the new polygon is poured inside the selected objects. Double-click to repour the new polygon as solid or hatched. Note that the edge of the new polygon will lay along the centerline of the selected objects that were used to create it.
As the Create Polygon from Selected Objects algorithm uses the centerline of the selected objects, it requires that the end and start locations of touching objects are exactly co-incident (at the same location). If this is not the case, a Confirm dialog will appear, giving the location where the algorithm failed and also providing the opportunity to instruct the algorithm to attempt to define the polygon from the edges of the objects instead. As long as the selected objects overlap slightly, this option should create a polygon with the edge of the polygon tracing the outer edge of the selected objects.
The following sections describe a number of commands available to graphically modify a polygon.
Polygons contain two points or "handles" with which to edit the shape of the polygon.
An existing polygon can be reshaped by moving these handles, or vertices, located at each corner or at the center of each edge.
To modify the polygon shape:
The top images show empty handle editing. In the bottom images, Ctrl has been clicked while grabbing the handle to move for editing.
In addition to vertex editing, you also can use the Polygon Actions » Modify Polygon Border right-click command to easily change the shape of polygons. Once the command is launched, the cursor becomes a crosshair. Each time you click, a new vertex is added. As during polygon placement, the Shift+Spacebar shortcuts can be used to change corner shapes.
To create a cutout or hole inside a polygon, place a polygon pour cutout on top of the existing polygon. To do this:
An existing polygon can be sliced into two smaller polygons. To do this:
Since these are now two independent polygons, each can be edited and repoured as required.
Combining Selected Polygon Pours
Two or more polygon pour objects can be combined by performing the following sequence of actions:
One or more polygon pour objects can be subtracted from another 'base' polygon pour by performing the following sequence of actions:
The following methods of non-graphical editing are available:
Properties page: Polygon Pour Properties
This method of editing uses the associated Polygon Pour dialog and Properties panel to modify the properties of a Polygon Pour object.
The Polygon Pour dialog on the left, and the Polygon Pour mode of the Properties panel, on the right.
During placement, the Polygon Pour mode of the Properties panel can be accessed by pressing the Tab key. Once the Polygon Pour is placed, all options appear.
After placement, the Polygon Pour dialog can be accessed by:
After placement, the Polygon Pour mode of the Properties panel can be accessed in one of the following ways:
The polygon pour placement engine can construct polygons from either solid regions or from a combination of tracks and arcs. To help you decide which of these to use, consider the following:
The same Polygon poured using regions then poured using tracks/arcs.
Remove any areas of copper that are less than the specified area. This option is area-based only; it does not consider if that island is connected to a pad or via. Note that all small unconnected areas of copper are always removed if the Remove Dead Copper option is enabled in the Properties panel.
In a region-based polygon, circular holes are approximated by a series of straight edges. Reducing this value will result in a larger number of straight edges being used to give a better approximation of an arc.
Use this to remove narrow slithers of copper. Note that when this option has a larger value, there will be a greater number of tight locations where the polygon cannot pour. The value should not be smaller than the narrowest track width that the fabricator can support. As a guide, it can be set to be the same as the narrowest track width used on the board.
To perform design tasks within a polygon, such as repositioning a component or moving routing, the polygon can be Shelved. Shelving a polygon does not remove it from the design; it is simply hidden from display and the DRC and net connectivity analysis engines.
If you have changed the design within a polygon, once it has been restored it will need to be repoured to clear any violations created by the design changes. To repour polygons, click the appropriate Repour command Tools » Polygon Pours » Repour nn.
Panel pages: PCB List
A List panel allows you to display design objects from one or more documents in tabular format, enabling quick inspection and modification of object attributes. Used in conjunction with appropriate filtering, it enables the display of just those objects falling under the scope of the active filter – allowing you to target and edit multiple design objects with greater accuracy and efficiency.
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