Saving to 3DEXPERIENCE

You can save an entire project along with schematics and PCB, save only a schematic with its hierarchy, or save only the PCB to 3DEXPERIENCE. When you save a project, Design with Altium Designer automatically recognizes the existence of any modification to the version in version control.

Save to 3DEXPERIENCE reads all existing assembly variant definitions. Each assembly variant is handled similarly to the invariant design assembly.

You can select and assign assembly documents. New assembly documents are created automatically if no existing assembly documents have been assigned. Each assembly document holds the ECAD name of the variant.

Before you begin:

Ensure to save all changes made to objects using Altium designer. If there are unsaved changes, an Unsaved Change in Project dialog box opens and lists all unsaved objects.

See Also
About Saving to 3DEXPERIENCE
In Altium Designer, in the product structure, right-click the object you want to save, and click 3DEXPERIENCE > Save or click 3DEXPERIENCE > Save with options.

  • When you click Save: The save operation is carried out without any user interaction. Only the progress bar showing the progress details appears. This operation considers all the children items for save. Manufacturing data output is not considered.
  • When you click Save with options: The Save to 3DEXPERIENCE dialog box appears. You can manually select objects to be saved. When you click Save in the Save to 3DEXPERIENCE dialog box, dialog box closes and progress bar showing the progress details appears. For more information, see Save Dialog Box.

The IPC-2581 data is created when you save the Altium Layout. To Download the IPC-2581 data of a PCB:

  1. Open the object in Product Structure Editor.
  2. Expand Physical Product(PCB) and click on 3D Shape.
  3. Open side panel, and click Derived Output.
  4. Select IPC-2581 and click Download.

The 3D file of a footprint is exported as STEP file in the 3D Package. To download the step file of a footprint:

  1. Open the object in the Prduct Structure Editor.
  2. Expand Physical Product > 3D Package Geometry and click on 3D Shape.
  3. Open side panel, and click Derived Output.
  4. Click Download.

When you execute Save, Save with Options, or Replace command on any object under the project which contains unsaved data, a confirmation dialog appears. It says project contains unsaved changes. Do you want to save and continue or to cancel. Click Ok to save the changes and continue or click Cancel to abort the operation

Note: The Save dialog box lists objects depending on the object type you selected for save. For example,
  • If the selected object is a project, the save dialog box lists the project with PCB and schematic hierarchy including manufacturing outputs (IDF data and configured output jobs).
  • If the selected objects are a schematic, it lists only the selected schematic and its hierarchy.
  • If the selected object is a PCB, only the selected PCB appears.
The IDF export CAD object gets directly added to the PCB objects and you can configure it using File Export IDF Preferences. For more details on setting File Export IDF Preferences, see Altium Preferences. The IDF export data gets automatically created during save, and stored to the IDF export CAD object in 3DEXPERIENCE.

The modified objects are saved to 3DEXPERIENCE.

Important: The configured Output Jobs File in Altium Designer gets automatically detected. Each configured output container of an output job file configuration is added to the specified CAD object. Output jobs are named as Altium Output Job in the CAD type column in the 3DEXPERIENCE Save dialog box. After saving the objects, you can review and download the Altium Output Job files in the Engineering Release app. For more information, seeSocial and Collaborative | Product Development - Model Based | Engineering Release Management | Listing My Engineering Items
  • While saving projects, the name of an output Job File configuration needs to be the same as the project name. Otherwise, the output Jobs are not detected by Design with Altium Designer.
  • While saving PCBs, the name of an output Job File configuration needs to be the same as the PCB name included with prefix “PCB_”. Otherwise the output Jobs are not detected by Design with Altium Designer.
  • Manufacturing outputs are saved as BPS documents in 3DEXPERIENCE. The number of BPS documents created are based on the number of output jobs configured in the CAD application. Each output medium creates a dedicated BPS document.