Altium Designer 18 - info

[mingming]

 

[BigBoss]

Do you know when it will be available ? ( with a lot of bugs sure..)

[nns]

It's nice to see that many of the features (multiboard, new interface, 64-bit) have made it into AD18 and not just ATINA.  It appears the collaboration stuff is just ATINA, which isn't a big loss for smaller design firms.  I hope that they've made some improvements to the 3D tools for measuring, moving around boards and aligning parts within an assembly.

[mairomaster]

Leave the fancy features aside - tell us how is the performance compared to AD17, please.

[mingming]

 

[mingming]

 

[mingming]

 

[Hensingler]

If you open AD's installation folder, you will see only a few programs were compiled with Delphi -- dxp.exe and altiumms.exe, pretty much all other modules (DLLs) are linked with .NET linker.

If you call 4 executables and 170 DLLs containing the text

"Embarcadero Delphi for Win32 compiler version 30.0 (23.0.21418.4207)"

'only a few' (AD17 without FPGA or embedded installed).

[mrpackethead]

Do you know when it will be available ? ( with a lot of bugs sure..)

I don't expect too many bugs. Altium 15, 16 and 17 are already using .NET technology extensively. The new AD18 just uses C# as GUI language, while the older versions use Delphi, but a lot of logic modules were already written in C# even in older AD versions.
If you open AD's installation folder, you will see only a few programs were compiled with Delphi -- dxp.exe and altiumms.exe, pretty much all other modules (DLLs) are linked with .NET linker.
Third party programs (7z, svn) are linked with Microsoft C/C++ native (non IL) linkers.
So in terms of programming language, the only change is the GUI interface language. I don't expect a lot of new bugs just coming out of nowhere.

I expect numerous bugs.  Altium are notorius at bugs, and i've been caught out by them before.  So i told the sales rep, id put my subscription on hold and wait till the jury is out, and they are actually delivering somethign worthwhile.   Ie, the proof will be in teh pudding.   Meantime,  AD17, does most of what i nede.

[Gibson486]

Do you know when it will be available ? ( with a lot of bugs sure..)

I don't expect too many bugs. Altium 15, 16 and 17 are already using .NET technology extensively. The new AD18 just uses C# as GUI language, while the older versions use Delphi, but a lot of logic modules were already written in C# even in older AD versions.
If you open AD's installation folder, you will see only a few programs were compiled with Delphi -- dxp.exe and altiumms.exe, pretty much all other modules (DLLs) are linked with .NET linker.
Third party programs (7z, svn) are linked with Microsoft C/C++ native (non IL) linkers.
So in terms of programming language, the only change is the GUI interface language. I don't expect a lot of new bugs just coming out of nowhere.

I expect numerous bugs.  Altium are notorius at bugs, and i've been caught out by them before.  So i told the sales rep, id put my subscription on hold and wait till the jury is out, and they are actually delivering somethign worthwhile.   Ie, the proof will be in teh pudding.   Meantime,  AD17, does most of what i nede.

Wont you get penalties if you let your subscription expire?

[Warhawk]

I would say that majority of AD bugs come from Delphi SDK. That thing is ancient.

[mrpackethead]

Maybe but if they wanna our business they will play ball.  They always have and always will. Just pick end of quarter to talk to them

[mingming]

 

[SVFeingold]

Now if we could just get some good 2D drawing tools and a 3D model export that doesn't crash Solidworks with 8000 different surface bodies and 16,000 broken faces, that'd be swell.

Then again after using EAGLE for a project Altium's 2D drawing tools are downright futuristic.

[catalyst]

My friends,
Where can i find AD18 for downloading?

[catalyst]

Thank you for your answer. Do you know street date?

[ddavidebor]

This is great news !

It seems to me they resigned the horrible component/pad/trace properties window, is that right?

Maybe the new 3d engine will handle high resolution 3d bodies...

Multiboard is a welcome feature, will cut errors.
Please tell me the git integration is real !

[mingming]

http://www.altium.com/resources/investor-announcement/investor_full_year_presentation_august_2017.pdf

[koko79]

The balls of Altium to put Raspberry Pi on one of their slides when they actually use Cadence OrCAD and Allegro.

[Pack34]

Watching the webinar for this now. This update is going to be amazing.

1. Darkened UI. Visual studio has done this and it's much better for eye strain
2. Net and component list in the workspace folder tree. This is the only thing I liked that PADs had.
3. Search features look great. It's common to forget a shortcut, being able to search for this in the software will be fantastic
4. Multi-threading is going to be huge. AD17 can take a while for me to open.
5. New 3D rendering engine looks so much faster.
6. Multiboard design is going to be huge for me. 80% of my designs are part of some form of board stack
7. Rendering engine in the CAM editor is much better

[logictom]

Watching the webinar for this now. This update is going to be amazing.

Signed up for this but got my timezone conversion wrong and I wasn't prepared to get up at 03:00 for an Altium presentation.
Did they give any details on a release date?

[Pack34]

Watching the webinar for this now. This update is going to be amazing.

Signed up for this but got my timezone conversion wrong and I wasn't prepared to get up at 03:00 for an Altium presentation.
Did they give any details on a release date?

If I recall, late October.

Notes from the presentation:
https://handouts-live.s3.amazonaws.com/f7d7b9333af84916a2ffa41921eeafba?sessionId=7710001319366042903&participantId=100027

[xjordanx]

The balls of Altium to put Raspberry Pi on one of their slides when they actually use Cadence OrCAD and Allegro.

Hmmm where'd you see that?

We don't use RPi for anything - it's not OSHW.

The main reference design for this build is a Mini ITX form factor PC with DDR4 SODIMMs and mPCIe WiFi card, in a multiboard project.

[Pack34]

Recording of the sneak peak presentation

http://go.altium.com/0920-2017-altium-designer-18-sneak-peek-webinar-recording.html?utm_source=altiumdatabase&utm_medium=email&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURCa056SmhOVEZqTTJSbSIsInQiOiJ2TmxJbitSYlF5K00wZTVxOEZSUVlWZmRwMnFCZml0bmsxUmp0YloxTDcwNGI1Z3BsQWFWbmd5NXBNTHphZFwvdExSSVJkUmhnbjFPaVJvYTAxVDlWZEFzVVRRNHZsNFNXN0dHUDMwS2drRlVFQThTSmlVdFEzbDJlRG5WRDRiSzUifQ%3D%3D

[DutchGert]

Looks very cool but for instance with DDRx Activeroute I would like to see how the designrules (need to) look in order to do a 'one-click saves you 1 month of routing'..

I simply cannot believe that something that took me a few weeks of manual routing (32bit DDR3 in fly-by on a 10L board)  back in 2015 in AD16 would now take ActiveRoute a few minutes (or even hours but still)....

[Warhawk]

Recording of the sneak peak presentation

http://go.altium.com/0920-2017-altium-designer-18-sneak-peek-webinar-recording.html?utm_source=altiumdatabase&utm_medium=email&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURCa056SmhOVEZqTTJSbSIsInQiOiJ2TmxJbitSYlF5K00wZTVxOEZSUVlWZmRwMnFCZml0bmsxUmp0YloxTDcwNGI1Z3BsQWFWbmd5NXBNTHphZFwvdExSSVJkUmhnbjFPaVJvYTAxVDlWZEFzVVRRNHZsNFNXN0dHUDMwS2drRlVFQThTSmlVdFEzbDJlRG5WRDRiSzUifQ%3D%3D

I might have understood wrong but from the presentation it seems than only new modules and a couple old ones are (re)written in C#.

[ajb]

So I was under the impression that this was supposed to be released in October, but now it's a good way into November and I finally see an email with a download link . . . for an open beta?

So it seems to be a bit farther off than we were lead to believe. 

[logictom]

I did a couple of their online workshops the week before last, they mentioned December as the release date.

Is the link a generic one rather than specific to your account? If so would you mind sharing. I emailed the beta team but never got any response but wouldn't mind sticking this on a different machine to get familiar with the interface before it's released.

[mars01]

Altium Designer (Open Beta)
Build: 18.0.7.293
Online installer: https://s3.amazonaws.com/altium-release-manager/Altium_Designer_18/AltiumDesignerSetup_18_0_7.exe
Licenses: Use your Altium Designer license

Altium NEXUS  (Open Beta)
Build: 1.0.7.36
Online installer: https://s3.amazonaws.com/altium-release-manager/Altium_Nexus_1/AltiumNexusSetup_1_0_7.exe
Licenses: Please note that Altium NEXUS will (temporarily) use Altium Designer licenses until January 1st, 2018

AD18 seems to have some issues with loading the DB libraries (it reports unknown format) and there are some issues with forms that are unicolor (don't show anything) until you move them around a bit (like pressing L key to get to the Layers view conf).
It requires a powerful GPU so you can see the benefits.

Otherwise AD18, compared with versions <=AD17, is wayyyy more faster.

[Warhawk]

So I just installed it. It seems its main program is still compiled with Delphi, just Delphi 64 bit. Most of its plugins are compiled with .NET, but there are still some Delphi reminiscence.
The entire installation has 189 Delphi binaries, 313 VS binaries and 5 GCC binaries.
Also, AD18 starts up really slow, from AD6.9 to AD14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, start up time got longer and longer.

that's what I was afraid before.

[Fire Doger]

Ohhh cmon... in multyboard 3D view they don't use the orange arrows on shift and instead of "0","9","8" navigation shortcuts you have to hit the faces on a tiny UCS square... why???

[Pack34]

A lot smoother in 3D view, but the software is buggy. I can't open layout files. I can open components in libraries but not the actual PcbDocs

[JamesH-AltiumOfficial]

Hi Pack34,

Are you able to open the example files? If not, then you may need to uninstall and reinstall the software. Please send me a PM if you'd like to discuss offline.

If the example files open but your own PcbDoc doesn't open, I would like to take a look at your file if possible. Let me know and I'll provide my email address.

Best regards,
James Harriman
Altium

[JamesH-AltiumOfficial]

P.S.
I definitely recommend posting this to the Open Forum - please see the announcement post:

https://forum.live.altium.com/#posts/224790

Best regards,

James Harriman
Altium

[DutchGert]

Altium installer gives me an error that it cannot downloac Active route extention (you cant disable it also)...

[logictom]

Wasn't there supposed to be git integration in AD18? I can't find any setting relating to git and there's no mention in the documentation

[Batang]

Anyone know how to edit 3D layer colors?

Cheers

[martin1454]

Wasn't there supposed to be git integration in AD18? I can't find any setting relating to git and there's no mention in the documentation

It's a plugin you can download from the extensions page

- Also, from what I saw, the release date is aimed for 15 december - Looking foward to it - love the beta so far

[logictom]

It's a plugin you can download from the extensions page

I didn't think to check there, however it was already installed. I tried removing and reinstalling, I only see SVN under Version Control and Design Repositories

[logictom]

My bad, I was expecting it in the menus but it's icons on the files in the Projects panel. Not a whole lot of functionality there - being able to compare against head is useful but it really needs to be able to compare against any commit to be useful - or even if it was limited to tags.

[Pack34]

Hi Pack34,

Are you able to open the example files? If not, then you may need to uninstall and reinstall the software. Please send me a PM if you'd like to discuss offline.

If the example files open but your own PcbDoc doesn't open, I would like to take a look at your file if possible. Let me know and I'll provide my email address.

Best regards,
James Harriman
Altium

James,

It looks like it was a licensing issue.