Cadence® Allegro® 3D Canvas is an advanced built-in 3D viewer, available with PCB Editor, that has the potential to showcase 3D view of a single object on a board as well as a complete board assembly. For viewing specific objects in 3D Canvas, you can easily select them by filtering out the unwanted objects from the 2D design. By doing so, in 3D Canvas you will be able to analyze only what you choose. You can select a single pin or a stacked via by its name and visualize it along with its associated components and layers in 3D Canvas. If you are interested in a section of your board design, grab the area and launch 3D Canvas. You will only see the selected portion of the board design. In addition, using the 3D Canvas preference settings, you can apply different color schemes, hide and show design layers, and slice the 3D view along any axis while viewing selective objects.

To view your design in 3D, you can employ multiple ways to select objects in the 2D design canvas.

1.    Selection Filter

The easiest way to view desired design objects is to use Object Filter, available in the View toolbar. In the view toolbar, click the triangle associated with 3D toolbar icon to expand a pull-down menu that provides a filter to select objects from the design. Choose one or more objects and click OK to view them in 3D Canvas. The rendering is fast and you can quickly preview the required objects. Only Pins are selected in the following example. 

2.    Pick Select

During placement, you can verify the clearance between two components by measuring the distance between them in 3D Canvas. Enable the checkbox for the object type in Find Filter and select one or more objects in the 2D design canvas using the Control key. Right-click any of the selected objects and choose the 3D Canvas command from the pop-up menu. 3D Canvas opens showing 3D images of the selected objects only.

3.    Window Select

To view a section of the board in 3D Canvas, enable objects in Find Filter and use the standard Windows selection method to select the objects in the 2D design window. Use View – 3D Canvas or right-click and choose 3D Canvas command to start the 3D window. The selected section of the board is displayed in 3D Canvas as a complete entity including mask, dielectric, and coverlay layers.

4.    Find by Query

Another way to choose objects for viewing in 3D is to create a query using the Find by Query option available in Find Filter. You can define a search criterion to find objects in the 2D design canvas and save the criterion to reuse it any time while designing.  All the objects available in the search result table can be selected at once within the Find by Query window. Use View – 3D Canvas or right-click and choose the 3D Canvas command or use the 3D icon from the toolbar to start the 3D Canvas.

5.    Find and Select

The Find by Name or Property window also selects objects in the 2D design. In the Find Filter, click More to open this window, which provides all the database object types in a pull-down menu. Selected objects are highlighted in the 2D design window and can be opened in 3D Canvas.  

All in all, you can choose your favorite method to select and view specific objects in 3D Canvas. Though simple, these steps increase efficiency by letting you focus on the right objects.