Brown Lines

[docaat]

    Can anyone tell me what the brown lines are in Ultiboard?  Once I trasfer my schematic from multisim to ultiboard all components have yellow lines which are the wire connections, but each component also has a brown line with a circle at the end of it.  I'm not quite sure what it is, I initially thought it was a guide to help you place the component but am not sure.


Thanks,

Ronak Patel

[lacy]

You are correct. These are called force vectors and are used to help you manually place components. I am not 100% sure of the way they are supposed to be used since I rarely pay attention to them.  I will post what the help file says about how to use them.

"Force vectors are powerful aids that help you place components on the PCB. When you place components manually on the board, you should pay careful attention to the force vectors coming from that component. They allow you to place the component as close as possible to other components that are part of the same net."

If you wish to learn more you can find this in the help file. Just search for "force vectors" 

[kittmaster]

They also show relative location of part to part location by distance, the longer the force vector the further away from each other they are.

Powerful.....? No way......basically useless by todays standards. They were very popular in DOS programs like Tango when screen resolution was 800x600 and the PCB design is large scale, it gave the user an idea of which way to zoom the screen to find the part needed when manually placing parts. With huge desktop resolutions now, you can see everything and use the scroll wheel to quickly aquire the need part for placement.

[lacy]

Thanks Chris for that information. I agree about them being more or less useless. I have hardly, if ever, paid much attention to them. Most of the time I turn them off as they just add a bunch of clutter on the screen.

[docaat]

    How can i turn those lines off?

[lacy]

Goto the Layers tab in the project view window. and look at the layers in the column. Down below the main layers you will find where it says "ratsnest" , "force vectors" etc. Just click on the box nest to it until, the check mark disappears.

There is an issue with this though. They will not stay off. If you do an autoroute or something they switch back on by themselves. I no longer fool with them at all and just ignore them.

[kittmaster]

the force vector reloading should remain off in the next revision. Its a known issue, and hopefully finally fixed.