Difference between revisions of "How to put a Logo on a PCB in Altium"

Revision as of 11:38, 12 November 2013

This guide will explain how to take a Logo (or other simple image), that is in a digital format (BMP, JPG, PNG, etc), and turn it into a 2-tone Silk Screen Overlay in Altium Designer. The guide was created with AD10 but the process should be similar for other versions of Altium.

Assumptions

• You've got Altium Designer 10 installed
• You've got a graphics editing program available such as MS Paint, Adobe Photoshop, or (my preference) GIMP

The Guide

Preparing Your Image

Coming Soon!

Importing the Image into Altium

1. Download the Altium Example Scripts from here.
2. Extract the Scripts folder to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Altium\AD 10\Examples\" (or whever your Altium Examples folder is located)
3. If you're going to be using this script a lot, load the PCBLogoCreator.PRJSCR Script Project into your Altium Workspace. This can be done in 1 of 2 ways:
   1. Navigate to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Altium\AD 10\Examples\Scripts\Delphiscript Scripts\PCB\PCB Logo Creator" and double click "PCBLogoCreator.PRJSCR".
   2. Start Altium, select File->Open... and navigate to PCBLogoCreator.PRJSCR and click "Open".
4. If you only want to use it sparingly you can do the following:
   1. Start Altium
   2. Click the "DXP" button in the upper left corner & select "Run Script..."
   3. Click "Browse" in the lower right and navigate to the PCBLogoCreator.PRJSCR file. Select it and click "Open".
5. Now, regardless of which method you just chose to use do the following
   1. Click the "DXP" button in the upper left corner & select "Run Script..."
   2. Click "RunConverterScript" and hit "OK"
6. Now a new PcbDoc should have opened and a "PCB Logo Creator" dialog box appeared.
   1. Click "Load" and select the .BMP file you prepared above.
   2. Select the "Board Layer" (I recommend Top Overlay for most purposes).
   3. Select the "Scaling Factor" (you're going to have to experiment with this but 1000 mils = 1 inch).
   4. Choose any check box options you want (typically you won't need any).
   5. Hit "Convert" & wait a bit.
   6. Once the conversion has completed click the "Exit" button
7. Now you have a Logo built out of Top Overlay lines! You can get it onto your chosen PCB via Copy/Paste or make it reusable by reading the next section.

Making your Imported Image reusable

1. At this point you should a .PcbDoc with a Top Overlay instance of your Logo
2. Hit Ctrl-A (to highlight all objects on the .PcbDoc)
3. Hit Ctrl-C (to copy everything to the clipboard)
4. Click somewhere near the center of the logo
5. Open up an existing (or create a new) .PcbLib
6. Right click on the "Components" Pane under the "PCB Library" Tab
7. Select "New Blank Component"
8. Click in the main PCB window & hit Ctrl-V & click to paste everything into the Component
9. Double click the "PCBComponent_1" in the "Components" Pane and give it a meaningful "Name" and "Description"
10. Save the .PcbLib

References

• http://wiki.altium.com/display/ADOH/Script+Examples+Gallery+Reference
• http://www.edaboard.com/thread224851.html