Hi!
There is a feature that has been asked since a long time ago and that keeps resurfacing from time to time, and I've searched a bit and nobody has mentioned it in a while, so I was thinking that maybe it's a good time to ask again 😄
Is there any possibilities of adding the ability of flipping the board? Right now, when you have to work with the bottom layers, it gets a bit messy, specially if you have a constructed prototype and you want to check if everything is in order. Also, due to the way layers stack, if you want to check the bottom silkscreen, the tracks get on the way, and the only way to solve that is messing with transparency values. Of course, you can print a mirrored board and use that as a guide, but as Jeff Gough pointed in 2011 (https://www.element14.com/community/thread/11706/l/flip-view-button?displayFullThread=true) "it's 2011, I don't own a printer". Well, it's 2017, can we have a flip views, pretty please?
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by jorge_garcia. Go to Solution.
Hi jsantosrico,
I agree that there should be a flip option, but there is a little know trick that may help. You can change the rendering order of the layers so the bottom layers render on top of the top layers.
Check out the SET Option.LayerSequence in the help file. You can specify the rendered layer sequence. If you want to flip the primary layers rendering order, type SET Option.LayerSequence then the order you want rendered.
Here is the rendering order I like best for flipping top and bottom along with supporting layers. You can load these settings from .scr files to make your own presets.
SET Option.LayerSequence 48t 49t 19t 20t 46t 24 28 26 126 52 22 44t 45t 38 36 32 30 34 40 42 43t 18t 17t 16-1 17b 18b 43b 41 39 33 29 31 35 37 45b 44b 21 51 25 125 27 23 47t 46b 20b 47b 19b 49b 48b 61-99
To set it back to default use SET Option.LayerSequence *
You can assign those commands or scr files for fast shortcuts. Alternatively you can create a custom toolbar button by placing the following into your eagle.scr file under the BRD: section.
MENU
'RENDER {\
Top : SET Option.LayerSequence *; |\
Bottom : SET Option.LayerSequence 48t 49t 19t 20t 46t 24 28 26 126 52 22 44t 45t 38 36 32 30 34 40 42 43t 18t 17t 16-1 17b 18b 43b 41 39 33 29 31 35 37 45b 44b 21 51 25 125 27 23 47t 46b 20b 47b 19b 49b 48b 61-99; |\
}'\
If you want to have your render settings in a scr files, you can change it to:
Rename the attached files from .txt to .scr and place them in your scripts directory. Then you can adjust the settings to your liking.
MENU
'RENDER {\
Top : SCRIPT RenderT.scr; |\
Bottom : SCRIPT RenderB.scr; |\
}'\
This creates
Best Regards,
Cameron
Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.
Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
Very cool trick, indeed! It doesn't "flip" the board, but yeah, very cool. Thanks for sharing the screencast!
FYI there is also the option to use 'mirror-board.ulp'
It mirrors everything and also swaps the layer colors. I haven't really used it, but it seems pretty stable. Use it at your own risk though as it does actually move all elements and not just the display.
Best Regards,
Cameron
Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.
Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
I've made some modifications to the mirror-board.ulp to include the option to turn off layer color swapping. I also added additional layer support.
If you want the layer colors to be mirrored as well, so bottom blue stays blue when mirrored to the top etc, set recolor to 1.
No color changes: int recolor = 0;
Colors mirrored: int recolor = 1;
Download the attached txt file, place it in your ulp directory, and rename it to mirror-board.ulp
Please let me know what you think.
Best Regards,
Cameron
Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.
Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
I think many have been asking for this for years, but there is always some excuse about when it will be in place. Surely AutoCAD knows how to rotate a board view 180 about an axis. Or maybe not.
Thanks, that is helpful!
However, Autodesk should implement this feature natively, as a viewing option that doesn't affect the design database at all.
+1. Flip view will be very useful. On big complicated boards script working hard and slow, I`m always afraid that my design will be broken and I have to make backups before it. And I can`t use "Lock" feature if I need to flip the board.
+1. Please add a command to be able to flip the board view. No ULP, no hacks, just a simple button that's all.
Yes please, for the love of all that is copper and silicon, please add a flip view feature. I've added a "Kudos" to the original post. Hopefully more people will so that this gets the love it needs.
FYI: this feature landed in the EAGLE 8.4.0 natively!
Use View -> Flip board
\o/
Yeah, I have immediately went to the fridge to open up a beer for celebration when I was reading about the flip board feature.
Hi, the new feature is amazing! thanks.
I was wondering if it make sense when you flip the board it would also change the working Layer? I know that it can be a problem if you're in the middle of a routing, but otherwise it would be nice to change the working layer so if you start routing you're already on the bottom or top layer according to the window flipped stated. What do you think?
Hi Matt,
First thought was about a simple flip and automatic change to the current layer, so if I start routing I would not need to change the layer.
The second idea also sounds great, the flip in-process during routing would drop a via to the current working layer. Similar to what already happen when you're routing and change the layer. I think both cases would save a bit of time and make the routing and flipping very fluid.
Another point that would help with the disorientation after the flipping, maybe keep the board centred on the mouse point where the flipping process has started, right now it flips in relation the the board origin.
Thanks for the response.
While it is great to see Eagle enter modern features such as flip board, it is too bad that the old 7.6.0 (pre-Autodesk) doesn't have that feature. I'll try for one of the prior tricks, although much less than ideal.
My corp day job has had me using Altium for 2 years, so now that I am back to doing side projects at home with Ealge, it has opened my eyes to just how different these platforms are. Sometimes quite a bit.
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