Today’s dense and complex PCB designs require realistic 3D view to investigate the design issues way before they are ready for manufacturing. The complexity of the PCB designs is increasing significantly with time and visualizing all the design components to address electronic and mechanical design issues in a single consistent environment has become a challenge.
To cater to this need Cadence® Allegro® PCB Design Solutions has a state-of-the-art 3D engine in the 17.2-2016 release. The enhanced rendering of graphics provides a real-life view of the design in various perspectives and directions. The 3D engine is embedded in the 3D Canvas utility and is available with all the flavors of Allegro® and OrCAD® licenses. This lessens design iterations and increases time to market by allowing you to visualize and validate the design as if already manufactured.
Key Features of 3D Canvas
3D Canvas is not just a viewer. It is a interactive tool that lets you work in 3D space with zero response time and great accuracy.
Easy to Use: UI and Menu Controls Consistent with PCB Editor
Similar UI and control panels for color, visibility, and objects as in the layout editor. Consistent menus and mouse functions make it easier to work and navigate in the 3D space.
Customizable Canvas Color
A set of pre-defined color themes are available to visualize designs in different color combinations. You can customize a color theme to match it to your conventional manufactured board.
Multiple Rendering Options
Investigate the design using default camera views, such as top, bottom, front, back, and so on, to view the design from different perspectives. You can switch between orthographic and perspective projections to analyze a more accurate view of the design. You can zoom, pan, and rotate the entire board to assess the design issues that are difficult to verify in a 2D view. You can simplify the design by hiding objects, layers, and functionalities for quick review of the intended design areas or the objects.
Layer Visibility Control
Design layers with actual thicknesses are accurately shown and you can peel back the layers in succession to investigate objects and connections on the internal layers.
Sliced View
The cutting plane option provides the ability to cut through objects, creating a sectional view showing the internal details of the design that cannot be seen from the outside. You can cut along any axis and in both the forward and reverse directions.
Selective Viewing
Design data visualization for a single object or a set of objects has been simplified. You can use a filter in the 2D design window to view only selected type of objects; for example, pins, vias, or components. You can also select a single net or via and render it in 3D Canvas. And, to add to it, you can window select a part of the design and open 3D Canvas to view only that selected area.
Cross Probing Between 2D and 3D Views
The advanced 3D engine takes care of synchronization between 2D and 3D views and even minor changes made in 2D are reflected in 3D in no time, and vice-versa. Seamless switching between 2D and 3D views provides the ability to run checks and verify design changes instantly.
Collision detection
External CAD systems are no longer required to verify the clearance between enclosures and assemblies in the design stage. You can see clashes between objects and tweak the placement accordingly: run 3D collision detection and move the overlapping objects that violate the spacing rules.
Interactive Move
Interactive move operations are, by default, enabled to let you do placement corrections in the 3D view itself.
Bend Area Visualization
The new 3D Canvas efficiently displays bend areas of a multi-zone rigid-flex design and lets you view the design in its folded state. You can either bend a single area separately or enable multiple bends for bending in the 3D view. You can conduct collision checks when the design is bent and measure a selected path in the 3D mode to optimize the clearances between enclosures and assemblies.
Export to Industry-standard Formats
A range of output can be generated from 3D Canvas. You can export 3D geometry and structural information of a board to almost all the industry-standard formats including HSF, HMF, OBJ, PLY, STL formats, and 3D PDF.
This is not an exhaustive list; keep an eye on the PCB Editor Release Notes for the new capabilities in 3D visualization engine to reduce design re-spins, saving cost and time to market. See Allegro 3D Canvas User Guide to explore 3D Canvas in depth.