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How do I create a polygon from a region or a fill, or add keepout property to a polygon pour?

jaza_tom

Hi all,

 

I'm trying to create a polygon pour from a region (reason being is explained under the video, below)  Is that possible?

 

I have played around and have been able to get the "Define from selected objects" (aka "Create polygon from selected primitives") command to work on poly-lines that form a closed area, circles, and arcs, but not with fills or "solid regions".  Here's a video of me mucking about trying to figure it out:

 

 

 

 

A little background:

 

I have a bunch of poured regions that I am using as high-current "tracks", which are finished being drawn.  Now I want to begin routing the rest of the board.  So, I "exploded polygon into free primitives" (aka converted the polygon pours into "solid regions"), and set the Keepout property of the solid regions to "true" using the PCB Inspector.  That way when routing/autorouting my polygon pours will remain entact.

 

The problem is, if I later on want to move something, how can I convert these "solid regions" back into "polygon pours" so that I can rebuild/repour them?

 

This whole process wouldn't even be necessary if polygon pours could have a Keepout property like solid regions do.

 

What's the best approach here?

 

Message was edited by: Tom MacDonald Found the correct answer.  See last post

  • 0

    Hi Tom.

     

    A little more background might help, if you have used polygons to create high current tracks why do you need to set keepouts? If the polygons are electrically connected to the net then other routing will avoid them.

     

    You can use the Home | Solid Region command to create a polygon keepout. Draw a Solid Region and then bring up its property dialog and change Kind to Copper and set Layer as required. You can now tick the Keepout checkbox to turn this polygon shape into a keepout.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Background is:

     

    I have some polygon pours used to provide connectivity for high-current nets (about 4 amp nets)

     

    When I invoke the autorouter, it routes tracks right through the polygon pours, thereby cutting them!

     

    See video:

     

     

      wrote:

     

    Hi Tom.

     

    If the polygons are electrically connected to the net then other routing will avoid them.

     

    The video I link to above is evidence that this is not (at least in my setup) true.

  • 0 in reply to jaza_tom

    Sorry Tom, missed the vital bit of into that you should Lock the polygons you don't want to be altered. I think that will work with the autorouter too.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Even locking the polygons won't save them from the wrath of the autorouter image

     

    vid:

     

  • 0 in reply to jaza_tom

    You are quite correct - another 10 years and I should know all about CS!! Try this - copy & paste the polygons; explode to primitives; tick keepout in properties; autoroute; remove these temporary keepouts.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    That works - sort of.

     

    Because of the Keepout property of the Solid Regions, the Poured Polygons do not connect to their target pins (because they no longer get poured).

     

    As a result, extraneous tracks are laid by the autorouter in an attempt to route the nets attached to these pins.  So, after autorouting you have extra tracks connecting the pads that are already connected by the polygon pours.

     

    So, I'm guessing that there may be a further workaround to make sure that these nets don't get autorouted (i'm thinking a net class that gets excluded from routing).

  • 0 in reply to jaza_tom

    Try setting the polygon to "pour over all same net objects" and make sure the polygon and keepout have same net assigned.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

      wrote:

     

    Try setting the polygon to "pour over all same net objects" and make sure the polygon and keepout have same net assigned.

     

    When you copy a poured polygon, it's net assignment property gets stripped.

     

    So in order to do what you are suggesting I would need to manually assign a matching net to each solid region that I'm using as a keepout. 

     

    That said, it does seem to work.

     

    See video:

     

     

     

     

  • 0

    Never mind, I actually figured out how to do this:

     

    You need to select the Lock All Pre-routes option in Tools-->Autoroute-->Setup

     

    image

     

     

    This will prevent your polygons (and other nets) from getting ripped up/altered by the autorouter.