Be the First to See Altium Designer 16.1 New Features

Remember that one time you did your documentation, changed your board layout, then did your documentation all over again? Yeah, that's getting old. Let's try something different.

As a valued Altium Subscription customer, we'd like to personally invite you to check out the Sneak Preview of Altium Designer 16.1, including Draftsman™ your complete documentation workflow available exclusively in the Altium Designer unified design environment.

View the Altium Designer 16.1 Coming Soon page to learn more.

 

Altium Designer 16.0.8 Update (04 March 2016)

We are please to announce next update of Altium Designer 16.0. Version 16.0.8 (build 354) is now available for download and update system in Altium Designer (DXP>>Extensions and Updates).
This update includes long awaiting solution for the polygon confirmation dialog and Vault Eplorer fixes for big folders support.

 

Release Notes
#8925    DRC markers layer is not being erased from the design anymore. It also being restored for the boards, that have lost it in previous versions.
#9177    No error longer shown while modifying Vault list in Preferences
#9182    Pin description are now being transferred to symbol during generation in Symbol Wizard
#9229    ItemManager - Fixed component duplication after editing with  defined custom grouping
#9409    Both TGZ and ZIP archives are generated for ODB++ output
#9445    User is now being properly notified  if pcblib download has failed
#9453    "Failed to get component template item revision" is no longer happens, if template with non empty comment is being defined for the folder
#9466    "Visible in Vault panels" property of lifecycle state is now properly supported in Vault Explorer
#9480    Fixed error in folder tree generation by PDF container in outjob, when "\" was not forcing sub-folder creation (BC:6137, BC:6123)
#9512    Multiline  text now properly display variant parameters in concatenated strings.
#9519    Update from library do not show fake changes for the footprints with several identical extruded bodies on top of each other.
#9534    "Builderstate RenderNodeManager" error is not happening any longer, while working with View Configuration
#9561    Item Manager - Error "Can not change selection of record" does not happen anymore, while performing Auto-Match operation
#9570    Common engineering notation is now used for unit-aware parameter data types in a Component Library (centi- is now used for length only) (BC:6068)
#9605    "Missing file" error does not happens, while performing preview with had copy containers in outjobs (BC:6104)
#9613    ODB++ tgz file output is now correctly structured to contain root odb directory.
#9618    Overlay graphics for components marked as 'Not Fitted' are now properly displayed in Assembly Drawing outputs(BC:6100).
#9638    "Access Violation" crash does not happens while accessing Tool menu on WindowsXP
#9640    MCAD origin moves properly when board shape move operation is being cancelled
#9646    Octopart links are now less aggressive in the UI.
#9678    ItemManager - Footprint is now selected automatically, while updating component to latest revision
#9694    "Default Checkout Path" parameter for SVN repository is now saved properly
#9732    Fixed customizing dialog for menu/toolbar commands: now it properly handles image files of different formats
#9839    Keepout regions are no longer exported to PDF3D
#9949    Updated Japanese localization
#10023    Fixed floating crash while releasing component templates to the Vault
#10184    Crash, when multiple pad in one point is being selected, does not happens anymore.
#10448    SQL error no longer happens, when where-used information is being process for the Vault model with more than 1000 references
#10608    Pads on mechanical layers are no longer ignored during an 'update from library' operation
#10609    Altium Designer no longer crashes when exporting a board containing a Design View, into STEP format
#10832    Altium Designer no longer asks for repour confirmation, after modifying a polygon pour (BC:5936)
#10891    An issue has been resolved relating to the display of board regions in embedded board arrays, when viewing the board in 3D (BC:4553)
#10892    Use of the Align Vertical/Horizontal Centers feature - from the Align Objects dialog - no longer results in objects being shifted
#10913    Generation of Gerber X2 fabrication output has been modified slightly, to comply with Gerber X2 Rev 2015.10.
#10929    Opening a PCB that features via shielding, no longer results in an exception violation
#10930    Long strings are now displayed in their entirety, when editing through the String dialog

Altium Vault - 2.5.14 (build) is available

Next public update for the Altium Vault - 2.5.14 (build) is available in download section of the site.
http://www.altium.com/products/downloads

That is maintenance update with bugfixes ony. Please, do not forget to perfrom data backup, before doing update on production system.

Release Notes
#9683    Upload of big NIS packages does not fail on Windows 2008 anymore
#9699    Fixed issue, when NIS package download links were pointing to the localhost instead of real server address
#9784    Floating error during backup due to locked Search Index does not happen anymore
#9787    Fixed memory leak in PartCatalog service
#9800    Fixed "Malformed string" error during background prices update in PartCatalog, when supplier returns encoded data
#9875    Backup tool does not hide database related errors during restore process anymore
Last edit: Nikolay Ponomarenko, 54 minutes ago

Altium announcement made today

Altium announcement made today

Altium’s PCB Technology to be Used in Dassault Systèmes’
Upcoming SOLIDWORKS PCB Design Product

Sydney, Australia - 2 February 2016. Electronics design software company Altium Limited
(ASX:ALU) today announced that it has signed an OEM agreement with Dassault Systèmes to
introduce a new SOLIDWORKS Electronic Computer-Aided Design (ECAD) product based on
Altium’s Printed Circuit Board (PCB) software technology. Dassault Systèmes is the world’s
largest, most respected and most innovative engineering software company.
“Dassault Systèmes’ selection of Altium’s PCB software technology is the most powerful
endorsement of Altium’s bid for market leadership and is a clear indication that Altium is seen by
industry leaders as the future of PCB design software”, said Altium’s CEO, Mr Aram Mirkazemi.
The new technology partnership between Dassault Systèmes and Altium will focus on enabling
seamless collaboration between mechanical and electronic design teams through natively
connecting design data between electronic CAD and mechanical CAD (MCAD) software
environments.
ECAD/MCAD collaboration has been a significant pain point for engineers. With the rise of
intelligently connected products, the line between electronic and mechanical design has
become blurred. In working with SOLIDWORKS, Altium has re-engineered its powerful Unified
Design Platform to include SOLIDWORKS’ data architecture in its native form. This will deliver
a unique platform and an unprecedented level of productivity in the design of intelligent
products.
“Intelligent design tools are critical for the creation of smart connected products. Design tools
need to play across multiple engineering disciplines to deliver effective system-level engineering
to produce successful intelligent products. Dassault Systèmes’ SOLIDWORKS and Altium are
responding to this challenge by delivering new capabilities for SOLIDWORKS users and for the
wider engineering community”, said Mr Mirkazemi.

MCAD Co-Designer Solidworks Update (29 January 2016)

update to the Co-Designer technology, that targets critical bug fixes.

Key change of this release is proper handling of the MCAD-ECAD origins. From now MCAD origin is explicit entity on ECAD side, that is being set automatically and is being moved with the board [shape]. That allows to use standard origin approach on mechanical side, and have board in working area on pcb side.

Important
Due to fixes to the of the storage engine on the server and origin change, this update MUST be applied for both sides, as for extension on Altium Designer side (to 1.0.1.16) as for SolidWorks plugin (to 1.0.1.20).
Those, who had access to intermediate version of AD extension (version 1.0.1.8) might face error "Unable to create sketch" on SW side. In that case you need to cleanup folder with cache of the models on SW side and perform pull operation once more.

Update to Altium Designer extension could be received traditionally, via Extension&Updates page. Solidworks plugin need to installed manually using provided installer (yes, mechanical engineers need to install that). See download section of the site
http://www.altium.com/products/downloads

Release Notes
#6548    3D models generated by CoDesigner extensions are now properly stored on the server (requires AD and SW plugins to be updated in sync)
#6937    Component's placed from the Vault are now properly supported
#8289    SolidWorks Collaboration plug-in no longer pushes an error when footprint name contains double quotation characters.
#8552    Resolved ambiguity with mechanical and electrical origins. On Altium Designer side explicit mechanical origin was introduced, which is automatically is instantiated on a first sync to the left bottom corner of the boards bounding box.
#8716    Network related time-out no longer happens while pushing huge models to the server
#9178    Fixed error "Value cannot be null. Parameter name: source" while pulling design to SolidWorks
#9391    Error "Unable to create sketch" are not longer appears. Requires synchronous update of AD and SW plugins.
#9395    Resolved improper import of board geometry defined with arcs to SolidWorks
Last edit: Nikolay Ponomarenko, 4 hours ago

Altium Designer 16.0.6 Update (17 December 2015)

Version 16.0.6 (build 282) is now available for download and update system in Altium Designer (DXP>>Extensions and Updates).

Release Notes
#9490    Some ODB++ loaders cannot load multi-line text strings, these are now automatically broken into multiple, single line strings to ensure correct loading into all ODB++ CAM tools.
#9505    Resolved a Schematic-PCB ECO update failure where a component footprint contains a '.Designator' multi-line string.
#9508    Resolved a Variants issue where the Fitted/Not Fitted option did not function correctly with Multi-Part Components that are spread over different sheets (BC:6087).
#9545    Empty multi-line strings do not prevent file load in 16.0 anymore
#9555    Restored the BOM sorting functionality so that secondary sorting is again applied from the first left column.
#9582    The graphic for the Diff Pair design rule has been updated to better reflect the function of the different width settings.
#9677    Resolved an issue where opening a schematic with a specific combination of image location and rotation settings would cause an exception (BC:6132

Altium Vault 2.5.13 Available (1 December 2015)

Version 2.5.13 (build 55112) is now available for download.

Please note: Backup your existing data before updating.

Release Notes
#8421 The Altium Vault's Team Configuration Center (TC2) now supports the creation of more than 15 user Roles.
#8791 Resolved an issue where component visibility was lost when the Vault database is reindexed after a software update.
#8854 A Component CAL license no longer creates an error when used with a Workgroup or Enterprise Vault installation.
#9082 Resolved an issue where changing the state of a large number of Vault components (more than 50) with a Batch operation would cause an SQL error.
#9174 The Vault's 'Remind' action for pending approval requests now works correctly with OS versions older than Windows 8.
#9400 Revision Naming Schemes and Lifecycle Definitions can now be successfully modified for an Altium Vault based on the Oracle database.
#9477 The Altium Vault Backup tool now correctly detects different Firebird architectures by identifying the active process name.
#9509 An Altium Vault folder that has a high number of elements no longer causes a 'Too many values' SQL error, and will accept further additions.
#9585 The Vault Explorer now correctly shows Supplier Chain information for components sourced from an Altium Vault that is using an Oracle database.