At 10:31 PM 2/26/2002 -1100, Douglas McDonald wrote: >Doesn't any unpaired layer (mechanical or otherwise) preclude the >implementation of a true flip board function in the future?
Let's back up and go for the ultimate functions which are presently lacking except through workarounds: (1) The ability to produce bottom-view assembly drawings. (2) The ability to truly flip a design or design section for re-use in a new design which might predominantly be oriented bottom-up from the point of view of the first design. (3) The ability to associate mech layers (or even copper layers) with top and bottom, in pairs, such that when a component is flipped, layers interchange as do, presently, top and bottom. This allows library parts to contain specific mech layer information such as an assembly drawing outline of the part, or height information. (2) and (3) are closely related. One feature that would serve the bottom-view assembly problem, which is *common*, would be display-linking of one layer with others. Someone described something as being part of PCAD that I thought sounded like this. So an assembly drawing, a mech layer, might have a section which was the PCB, bottom-view, offset, with layers enabled differently (i.e., in the normal view top overlay and top padmaster might be enabled, in the reverse view, bottom overlay and bottom padmaster.) We'd like to be able to have separate top and bottom assembly drawings *or* common drawings, a single drawing showing both sides of the board. I do this now with re-imported photoplots, the down side being that it all must be done again when the board is edited. The others are less common as needs, but note that all three problems are solved or made easier to solve by extended layer pairing with top-bottom. A few hard-wired pairs would be nice, but I'd also like to be able to pair mid layers, this might be essential for design re-use where impedance-controlled structures existed on the copper layers immediately under the parts. It might be considered that *all* layers could be paired, with an option for each layer to turn it off. If the pairing were turned off, flipping parts or board sections containing primitives on a pairing-disabled layer would not change that layer. Perhaps a new dialog box which controlled layer pairing would accomplish this. An advantage of having controlled pairing would be that libraries could then contain standard information. Yes, we should have dedicated assembly layers. This should have been done long ago.... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/proteledaforum@techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *