EEVblog® Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => Altium Designer => Topic started by: Vilius on January 16, 2024, 03:57:16 pm
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Hi,
I am starting a new project of complex log spiral type antenna in Altium. Technical details of the project does not matter this time. I was wondering how can you place a curve that has been defined according to the mathematical formula? I need some crazy curves in Altium this time, luckily, I know the exact mathematical expression to follow, but doing this as a manual polygon pour with hundreds if not thousands of points is simply not an option this time. Worst case, I could possibly import it as a monochrome picture with 1:1 ratio and make the polygon pour out of it, but I am strict in precision as well. There has to be a way to do this properly in Altium. Any ideas or experiences? Thank you in advance.
The curves I am after: (in attachments)
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I think the best way would be to export the curve as a DXF and then import that into the PCB. During import you will be able to select the layer you want it to go on, plus the line/track width.
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I´m also in need for something like that to draw parameterizable PCB inductors. I think the only way is to draw them using the pascal commands. When I download some PCB footprints (I think from Ultra Librarian but maybe Samacsys or SnapEDA) it downloads a pascal source code that draws lines and holes to make the footprint. I´d like to find a documentation for these functions but maybe reverse engineering a footprint like that is all that´s needed.
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Just found this:
https://github.com/johannesbook/draw-planar-inductor/tree/master
It´s far from what I need to do but it´s a start...
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Hi,
I am starting a new project of complex log spiral type antenna in Altium. Technical details of the project does not matter this time. I was wondering how can you place a curve that has been defined according to the mathematical formula? I need some crazy curves in Altium this time, luckily, I know the exact mathematical expression to follow, but doing this as a manual polygon pour with hundreds if not thousands of points is simply not an option this time. Worst case, I could possibly import it as a monochrome picture with 1:1 ratio and make the polygon pour out of it, but I am strict in precision as well. There has to be a way to do this properly in Altium. Any ideas or experiences? Thank you in advance.
The curves I am after: (in attachments)
That's a very complex shape. I wouldn't expect you could draw anything like that directly in Altium.
As Antalife suggests draw it in some mechanical CAD package then export it to DXF, then import the DXF into Altium.
Alternatively, find some editor software package that can import the PNG file you have, then resize and edit to your hearts content, then export to DXF, then import the DXF into Altium.
Good luck.
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It may be possible to use some open source SVG tools and then convert to DWG and then import. That probably opens up some options in mathematical graphics tools that may allow you to easily translate your requirements. Would likely be worth doing some validation, perhaps loop back (SVG -> DWG -> PcbDoc -> DWG -> SVG) and comparing.
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There are several scripting languages available for Altium. You might look into that.
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excel. create table with start and end points for vectors. copy and paste in the pcb list panel as tracks