PCB Filter stupidity

[ajb]

This drives me crazy.  One would expect that IsTrack OR IsVia OR IsPolygon would be sufficient to select all of the copper objects in a PCB, but because the PCB Filter does not distinguish between (copper) tracks and (non copper) lines, you also get all of the lines on every layer.  Okay, so let's add AND OnSignal, surely that will filter out all of the stuff not on signal layers, right?  Nope, OnSignal doesn't do shit.  OnCopper?  Also does fuck-all.  Even free 3D Bodies on mechanical layers get included!  Maybe OnTop?  Nope, still get all of the lines in any topside components, even though component primitives are locked.  There's also OnTopLayer for some reason, maybe that will work?  Nope, same as OnTop.

Okay, different tack.  (IsTrack OR IsVia OR IsPolygon) AND (Not InAnyComponent).  Hey, that works!  But what I actually want is free copper not attached to a net, so let's add AND (Not InAnyNet), and. . . now I get polygons that are DEFINITELY in nets!  WTF?  Okay, strike OR IsPolygon, and okay, that does exactly what I want, except I also wanted polygons, but oh well.

I don't often try to do compound filters like this--has the PCB filter always been this bad, or is this new in AD18?  Am I just doing something wrong?

[T3sl4co1l]

Are you not using parenthesis/operator precedence correctly?

(IsTrack OR IsArc OR IsFill OR IsRegion OR InPoly) AND OnCopper should work fine.  Or shorten that to skip any you're not using (or add any I've forgotten).

That might be a catch, too.  Polygons are (as far as I know) a sort of hidden union object containing regions.  So IsRegion grabs region objects as well as the copper inside polygons.  Another oddity of AD.

Disclaimer, I'm still in AD16 so I'm not sure if this has changed.

Tim

[ajb]

I tend to over-parenthesize as a rule, doesn't help.  Playing with it some more, it seems like IsPolygon is not compatible with (Not InAnyNet):

(OnCopper AND (IsTrack OR IsVia)) And (Not InAnyNet) works.

(OnCopper AND (IsTrack OR IsVia OR IsPolygon)) And (Not InAnyNet) does not work (tracks and vias are selected correctly, but it selects ALL polygons).

I had forgotten about InPolygon, that also doesn't work with (Not InAnyNet) but in a different way:

(OnCopper AND (IsTrack OR IsVia OR InPolygon)) And (Not InAnyNet) selects tracks and vias correctly, but does not select ANY polygons.

Simplifying it to just IsPolygon and (Not InAnyNet) or InPolygon and (Not InAnyNet) shows the same problems.

Okay, that's at least a specific enough problem to take to BugCrunch so Altium can ignore it for the next ten years.

IsTrack and OnCopper does seem to work now, I swear it didn't before, but I could just be losing my mind.

[free_electron]

(istrack or ispolygon or isvia) and onsignal

grabs all on signal layers. does not include planes.