Web Viewer
Altium 365's Web Viewer interface provides universal access to PCB project documents through a standard web browser. Much more than just a web-based viewer, Web Viewer's advanced browser technology allows users to navigate through the project structure, interact with design documents, extract information about elements in the design and highlight areas or objects for commenting notes.
When viewing documents the visual quality of schematics and PCBs are not compromised by its web format, which also provides full pan and zoom capabilities and the ability to search, cross-probe, select and inspect components and nets throughout the design.
As an independent browser based viewing platform, the Web Viewer interface offers interactive read-only access to design documents without the need to open the project in the design editing environment. Others that are working on the design, such as the engineer who 'owns' it, will not be affected by actions in the Web Viewer space – except for any related comment notifications, where applicable.
Web Viewer Access
The Web Viewer interface is utilized in the following instances:
Manufacturing Package Viewer
A key aspect of design projects managed within a Workspace is the ability to create and share a release Build Package with others. When shared directly with your manufacturer it can then be thought of as a Manufacturing Package, since it is the package that the manufacturer can browse, download and use to fabricate and assemble the board.
Supporting the ability to share such a package with others and with your manufacturer (who is typically outside of your organization), the Altium 365 Platform provides a dedicated Manufacturing Package Viewer – an element of the platform's Global Sharing support – which allows others to view a manufacturing package from any web browser – anywhere in the world – but outside of your Workspace, so that your designs themselves and other valuable IP are kept off limits.
The Viewer opens in its own browser tab and provides a summary overview of the design, with key board data, along with the ability to browse the structure of the shared data (and to download any individual file thereof as needed). You can also download the full package from this view. Fabrication, Assembly and Bill of Materials data sub-pages of the viewer are also provided, with the Fabrication and Assembly views ultilizing the Web Viewer interface, providing a powerful interactive experience and allowing for comments to be added by all users to which the package has been shared. The Fabrication view presents the Gerber and Layer Stackup data for the release.
Ultimately, the manufacturing personnel can download a Build Package of the release they have viewed – and from any page of the Viewer – with which to get that revision of the board physically realized.
Each shared user will receive an email invite with a link to view a manufacturing package through the Manufacturing Package Viewer. Shared manufacturing packages are presented on the Shared with Me page of the Altium 365 Platform Interface.
Standalone Altium 365 Viewer
Altium 365 Viewer provides free access to view and share your electronic designs and CAM manufacturing data through your Web Browser.
No downloads, no installations and no registration required. A truly tool-neutral viewing experience that allows you to view and share designs sourced from an ever-expanding variety of supported ECAD design tools. You can even embed Altium 365 Viewer on your own website – taking the viewing experience literally to your own domain!
Access Altium 365 Viewer on the Altium website using its direct URL: altium.com/viewer. Once there, drag and drop your CAD design or CAM data (in a Zip, Rar, or 7z archive), or an individual design/manufacturing file, to the indicated area.
An example design project is also included, so that you can take Altium 365 Viewer for a test-drive straight away – just click the View Example Project link.
Key Benefits
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Design Privacy – your uploaded design is removed as soon as it is processed. As a result, viewing of the design is time-limited – available for the duration of your browser session (and no longer available if you close your browser tab). Alternatively, you can choose to share your design through a link, where it will be available to anyone with that link for a period of 48 hours.
This limitation applies only when using Altium 365 Viewer hosted on the Altium website (altium.com/viewer). There is no time limitation when embedding Altium 365 Viewer on your own web pages. Alternatively, upload designs to your Personal Space on the Altium 365 Platform (only available when registered with an Altium Account). This feature allows you to upload and store supported entities (e.g. Design Snapshots) for viewing and sharing on a permanent basis. To create an Altium Account – and hence gain access to the Altium 365 Platform Interface – use the direct URL: https://365.altium.com, then click the Register control at the bottom.
Note that design data shared by a link may be indexed by search engines and available to its users.
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CAD Agnostic – Altium 365 Viewer currently offers support for loading and viewing designs in Altium Designer, Autodesk® EAGLE™, KiCad® and CircuitStudio CAD formats. Support for additional CAD formats will be added over time. You can even vote for which design format you would like to see supported next!
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CAM Support – Altium 365 Viewer currently offers support for loading and viewing manufacturing data in Gerber RS-274X and Gerber X2 formats (along with corresponding NC Drill data).
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Natively CAD – offering stunning, interactive CAD-centric renditions of your designs, including Schematics, PCB (2D and 3D) and BOM (with pricing information from Octopart).
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Fully Interactive – with your design loaded into Altium 365 Viewer, it is not just a static image. You'll be able to search, cross-probe, select and inspect various objects, including components and nets, throughout the design. And when viewing the board in 2D, you can even take measurements.
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Generate Deliverables – in addition to inspecting a design, you can generate and download a number of different outputs from it. Currently supported are: the source design itself, Gerber, IDFX, IPC2581, ODB++, STEP, PDF (Schematic Prints, PCB Prints, PCB 3D Print and PDF 3D).
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Embeddable – you can freely embed Altium 365 Viewer into your own website, courtesy of a short HTML code snippet. In addition, you can customize what is presented and which deliverables a person browsing your design can generate and download.
Troubleshooting
To ensure a smooth experience with Altium 365 Viewer and the Web Viewer interface within the Altium 365 platform itself, ensure you have:
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The latest version of a supported Web Browser installed.
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That WebGL (or WebGL 2.0) is enabled for it.
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That the option to use 'Hardware Acceleration' is enabled for your browser where available. This will typically result in a far smoother viewing experience, since 3D rendering is performed by the dedicated video card (GPU) where one exists, rather than the CPU of the computer itself.
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If your computer has dual graphics cards – integrated and dedicated – then it is suggested to utilize the dedicated GPU over the integrated GPU.
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That the video drivers for your computer are up to date (including drivers for dedicated graphics cards).
It is recommended to always have the latest version of a supported browser installed.
