Additionally, Altium Designer supports adjusting each object’s transparency separately and for every layer which can be applied to a board design. You now have more control over how things are displayed within the space of your design. Transparency-level parameters can be customized, experimented with, and fine-tuned to meet your needs using the Visibility dialog of the object.

What is Altium Single Layer Mode?

Copper electrical, protective masking, insulation, text, as well as layers for the graphic overlay are some of the layers that make up a PCB.

Along the design space’s bottom edge are tabs for each layer that is usually set visible for the panel for View Configuration. They let you to change the layer that is currently displayed and provide a visual cue for which layer is the highlighted or current layer. Utilize the arrows in going through all the tabs if there are extra layer tabs compared to the number you can show at once.

Altium Single layer Mode Explained

What Does 2D Single-Layer Display Mode Mean?

This Single-Layer mode functions are incorporated with a Board Insight and may be set up on the Preferences dialog’s PCB Editor – Display page of the Board Insight. While all other layers’ contents are either hidden or dimmed in Single Layer mode, the information of the present layer are displayed.

Single-Layer mode features monochrome and grayscale display modes in addition to hiding all the objects present on the other layers just to show the contents present in the present layer.

You can maintain the information of the spatial relationship regarding the locations of other elements in your design by converting other different layer colors into monochrome or grayscale without being distracted from the interested layer. Press the shortcut Shift+S to switch between full display as well as each activated single-layer modes. The software advances to the following enabled mode with each Shift+S key push before returning to full mode for display.

On your PCB Editor, the modes of the single layer are enabled. If there are any modes that you don’t wish to add when pressing the Shift+S button, then disable or uncheck them. All designs present in this Altium designer installation are subject to these settings.

3D Altium Single Layer Mode

Whenever this board is shown in the mode of the 3D Layout, single-layer mode could also serve as an option. Utilize it for purposes like evaluating the quality of the layer of your power plane or the routing quality on a particular layer.

When viewing the board in the 3D version, the single layer mode operates essentially like when viewing the board in the 2D version. A Board Insight System’s list of possible single layer modes is defined on its PCB Editor.

Both perspective and orthographic projection options are available in your insight of the 3D Board to display your board. To choose the preferred display method while in 3D mode for viewing, use that Projection region on the View panel’s View Option tab.

Also, to view text and items on the Circuit board in their exact locations without having the background objects obstruct them, choose orthographic. To display a 3D view or look of your PCB that is more realistic, select Perspective.

Utilizing your Board Insight System

The board Insight can be described as a set of features which can be configured to offer you total control over how to view and interact with the PCB design. A complicated multi-layer board creates a visually busy and frequently challenging to understand design area. This Board Insight system for Altium Designer makes it simpler to observe and comprehend the objects present in the design. It is made up of a comprehensive collection of functions created to satisfy the view management requirements.

Upgraded Single Layer mode, as well as 3D visualization properties, are integrated with the Board Insight. While in the single Layer mode, it is possible to clearly see whatever is present on one layer while also getting a sense of what is present on the other layers.

The PCB design appears to the untrained eye to be a confusing tangle of lines, arcs, circles, and strings layered on the top layer of each other in various colors. It could be challenging to understand the extensive amount of the design detail, even using an eye that is highly trained. Numerous tools are included in the Altium Designer in making it easier to locate, recognize, and control how design content is shown. This Board Insight system is the name given to these elements taken as a whole.

Objects and Layers

Each layer is represented by a row in your Object Visibility dialog’s grid, and every object type is represented by a column. This not only makes it possible to declare a special setting for a certain item across multiple levels, but also makes it possible for other objects to be used.

By design, only the layers inside the layer stack for such current board will be displayed. Remove the Only reveal used layers option in the Altium Designer to see all layers that are supported for the board design.

The layers are organized according to the functional types they serve:

• Layers of Signal
• Mechanical Layers
• Silkscreen Layers
• Other Layers
• Internal Planes

Names as well as transparency values of layers that aren’t presently utilized in your design are shown in a gray-colored text. For the unused layers, you could still set its transparencies as necessary.

It’s a great idea to deactivate the “Only show utilized layers” checkbox before configuring the parameters for every layer if you intend to create a global setup for transparencies which can be utilized for every board design.

Under this method, visibility settings would already be established and available for usage whenever further layers are included to a certain board design.

Conclusion

Hope we have explained what altium single layer mode is. Copper electrical, protective masking, insulation, graphic and text overlay layers are some of the layers that make up a PCB. Along your design space’s bottom edge are tabs for each layer that is presently set visible inside the panel of View Configuration.