Editing Your Geometry
This topic provides the details for selecting and editing objects in your geometry project file. These commands may be used when in pointer (default) mode, edit points mode, adding a parameter and modifying a parameter's point set.
Clicking on an object while in pointer mode will select the object. If the object is a polygon, clicking inside the polygon or the edge will select the polygon. The polygon will become highlighted when selected.
To select a point, you must first be in the edit points mode. Then you select a point by clicking on that point. The selected point should become highlighted.
When a polygon or set of points is selected, the dimensions of the bounding box around the object(s) will appear in the cursor portion of the status bar. This provides a readily accessible measuring device.
When a polygon is selected the outline is highlighted in black, the vertices are identified with open circles and the sides with open squares. You may reshape or resize the polygons by dragging the handles with your mouse. For detailed instructions on moving points, please see Moving Selected Objects or Points below.
Separate polygons sometimes have several vertices in common. If you want to select a vertex of, say, polygon A, but not the coincident vertex of polygon B, be sure the cursor is close to the vertex and just inside polygon A. The polygon A vertex is then selected.
To select multiple points while in edit points mode or multiple objects while in pointer mode, "lasso" an area which contains these objects. To lasso an area while in the pointer or edit points mode, move the cursor to the upper left corner of the region you want to select and press the left mouse button without releasing it. Hold the mouse button down and drag it to the right and down. A rectangular box shows the area that will be selected. Now release the mouse button. All points or objects in the region are selected.
When performing multiple selects, it may be desirable to add items to items already selected or to remove items from previously selected items. In order to add items, without unselecting any other item, press the Shift key while performing the select. To unselect items, which are already selected, without unselecting any other item, press the Control key while performing the unselect.
Note that the Shift key allows you to select additional objects, while the Control key toggles the state of the objects. If it is currently selected, pressing the Control key while performing a selection action will unselect the object. If the object is not currently selected, then pressing the Control key while performing a selection action will select the object.
The above applies whether you are performing selections by clicking on a single item or by "lassoing" a group of items.
To move an object or point, position the cursor on the object or point and press, without releasing, the left mouse button. With the button held down, move the mouse. The point or object moves as you move the mouse. Drag the point or object to the desired location and release the button.
If you wish to move multiple points or objects, select them by lassoing as described above. Then place the cursor on any one of the highlighted points or objects and drag the mouse. Note that, in the case of points, the polygon(s) will be reshaped to accommodate the new position(s) of the point(s).
Notice that by default the polygons and/or points that you are moving always "snap" to the nearest grid point. If you want to move a point or polygon between your grid points, you must change the snap setup. See Snap/Ortho for details.
You may also move selected points by using the arrow keys while holding down the Shift key. Each time you press an arrow key, the selected points are moved by one cell in the direction of the arrow.
Clicking on the substrate, outside all selected objects, will unselect all objects.
If your circuit requires more than one layer of metalization, you may want to modify the objects or points on some or all of these layers simultaneously.
To select points or polygons on more than one layer at a time, toggle single layer select to the off position by selecting Edit - All Layer Select. This puts you in the Multi-Layer select mode. When in this mode, the select by lassoing or select by pointing applies for all layers. This mode is usually used for moving and copying multilayer structures, such as vias.
Pressing Ctrl-A selects all the polygons in your circuit on all layers regardless of the Single Layer Select setting.
The project editor provides you with a way of flipping, rotating, and resizing polygons. To use these features, first select the polygon(s) that you wish to change, and then choose the appropriate menu item.
By default, your mouse wheel can be used to zoom in or out on your geometry. You may change the default action of the mouse wheel function to scroll by selecting the Mouse Wheel Scrolls checkbox in the Preferences dialog box. For either default case, pressing the Ctrl key toggles the mouse wheel function to the alternate setting.