©
National Instruments Corporation
10-1
10
Using Mechanical CAD
Ultiboard’s mechanical CAD function can be used to design enclosure
boxes, front panels, or any other mechanical part associated with your PCB
design. Mechanical CAD functionality in Ultiboard takes two forms:
•
You can create multi-layer mechanical CAD design files.
•
You can have mechanical CAD layers as part of your PCB design files.
Design files can include up to 10 mechanical CAD layers. These are
accessed through the
Layers
tab of the
Design Toolbox
and can be
used in the same way as other layers in your design. Refer to the
section of Chapter 3,
, for more
information.
For the most part, you work with mechanical CAD designs the same way
that you do with PCB designs, although you cannot place traces or use the
Autoroute function in mechanical CAD designs.
Some of the described features may not be available in your edition of
Ultiboard. Refer to the
NI Circuit Design Suite Release Notes
for a list of
the features in your edition.
Creating Mechanical CAD Projects
To create a new project :
1.
Choose
File»New Project
. The
New Project
dialog box appears.
2.
Type the project name in the
Project name
field.
3.
From the
Design type
drop-down list, select
Mechanical CAD
.
4.
Indicate the folder where the file is to be kept. Either accept the default
shown in the
Location
field, or click the Browse button to select a
different location.
5.
Click
OK
. The
New Project
dialog box disappears, and a blank
unnamed mechanical CAD design is opened in that project.
The project you just created is also shown in the
Projects
tab.
