[SOLVED] Altium - how to export pcb-objects as a list

[Chris123]

Hi,
I want to export the tracks of different nets in a plain text file readable by scripts for further analysis/simulation.
So far I've tried two ways:

1.) Using a script
The problems to be solved are:
- access the pcb-objects with their specific properties
- writing a file
... unfortunately for Tcl -my favorite scripting language- the support isn' very strong.......
I need a documentation and reference manual for the variables and the usable Altium-specific commands...
If it isn't possible with Tcl -maybe with one of the better supported languages....

2.) Analyse the .pcbdoc
The file format is a mixture of readable text (options and parameters) and a binary part, where objects are organized in records of different length. For example the coordinates and width of the tracs are unsigned ints in units of 1e-4 mils.
Unfortunately the length of the records depend on the number of parameters used which changes from file to file.
so without the structure of the records and the way how to read it from the file the analysis is impossible......
Maybe anyone has experience with .pcbdoc ....

3.) Copy/Paste from PCB-List
Works, but is laborious, when interactively optimizing a design while simulating........


Any help?

 

[Mattylad]

Does altium have any sort of report writer?

How do you want your report? You say "the tracks of different nets" - do you mean something like a netlist?

Or do you need a report on each segment of track?

Are you wanting their xy to-from positions?

More info needed.

 

[Chris123]

The info I need are the exact xy-positions, width and layer of all track segments, vias and arcs -everything necessary to reconstruct all the copper on the board. With the data I want to feed an online simulation assisting the layout process.

The nets, accessible when the pcb is based on a schematic, help to identify the copper.

Altium has some report functions. But a detailed info is not accessible within a mouseklick. The idea with the script was to make an shortcut which does the job. Delphi script would be new for me and Tcl/Tk is not much supported by Altium. Some script examples showing the access to the internal variables would help a lot....

 

[Mattylad]

Can you do what you want with a Gerber output?

 

[Chris123]

I've given up analysing the .pcbdoc -file. I only could reconstruct the binary records of the pcb-items in an undisturbed region of the file. A complete reconstruction of the interrupted regions seems to be impossible without Altium's file management procedures, which I assume they don't publish.....

So I finally went to the scripting idea with Delphi. The autocompletion feature in Altium's script editor helps a lot in understanding the objects used in the Altium Run Time Library....

i think I'll get it running soon