FreePCB User Guide

 Version 1.2


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5. PCB Layout (continued)

5.10 Board Outline

The board outline represents the outline of the PCB (duh!). In FreePCB, it consists of a closed polyline (or polygon) consisting of 3 or more sides, with corners between the sides. The sides may be straight line segments or arcs. An arc is one quadrant of an ellipse whose major axis is parallel to either x or y. The advantage of using this limited definition of an arc is that the arc is completely defined by the position of its endpoints and a direction, which may be clockwise or counterclockwise. A sample board outline consisting of 10 corners and 10 sides is shown below. Note that two of the sides are arcs.

 

The board outline is created by selecting Add > Board Outline. There can only be one board outline in a project, so if one already exists you will be prompted to delete it. The cursor will change into a cross-hair. Place the starting corner by left-clicking the mouse. You will then find yourself dragging a rubber-band representation of the first side. Left-clicking again will place the second corner, and you will be rubber-banding the second side. Continue until you have placed the last corner, then right-click to close the polyline by drawing a side back to the starting corner.

While drawing, you can change the style of the current side from straight to an arc by using the appropriate function keys (F1 for straight, F2 for a clockwise arc and F3 for a counterclockwise arc). The style that you select will remain in effect until you change it. Note that arcs become straight lines if the end-points are vertical or horizontal.

Placement of the corners will be controlled by the Placement Grid, which should be set to an appropriate value before starting to draw the outline. Placement will also be controlled by the Snap Angle. If the Snap Angle is 45 degrees, then arcs will be quadrants of a circle. 

Once the outline has been created, you can edit it in the following ways:

 


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