Altium's A365 Viewer Brings Interactive PCB Schematics, Layouts, and 3D Visualization to the Browser

Altium's new view utility is impressive, though work still needs to be done to achieve its "CAD-agnostic" goal.

Gareth Halfacree
4 years agoProductivity / HW101

PCB design software specialist Altium has officially launched a cloud-powered viewing utility it hopes will make electronics documentation significantly more accessible and useful: the in-browser impressively-three-dimensional A365 Viewer.

Named for the Altium 365 cloud platform which underpins the app, the A365 Viewer runs in-browser and is — as a result — compatible with any modern device from desktop PCs to phones and tablets. The viewer takes in schematics and PCB layouts and provides an interactive view - including a live 3D rendered representation of what a design will look like in the real world.

It's an approach that has already won support from the industry, with Arduino opting to integrate the A365 Viewer into its own website. "Adding the Altium 365 Viewer has significantly enhanced the user experience when navigating the product documentation in our website," claims Arduino chief executive Fabio Violante.

"Now Arduino users can freely browse schematics, PCB layout and even 3D models of the Arduino boards and modules online, without the need to download or install anything additional. The capability of being CAD-agnostic will shortly allow Arduino to add the online design viewer to every product page, including the ones designed in Autodesk Eagle."

While A365 Viewer is designed to be, as Violante says, "CAD-agnostic," it's not quite there yet: In its initial launch, the A365 Viewer can load data from Autodesk Eagle and Altium Designer; support for alternative PCB design formats is planned, Altium claims, but with no roadmap yet published.

A key feature of the A365 Viewer is its ability, Altium claims, to provide an interactive overview of a design while protecting the underlying intellectual property: Files are processed to create what the company is calling a Published Design Impression (PDI), a CAD-aware perishable snapshot which excludes the design primitive data that would be required to replicate or modify a design.

More information on A365 Viewer, including the ability to upload your own design files and embed the Viewer on any website, can be found on the official product page.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
Latest articles
Sponsored articles
Related articles
Latest articles
Read more
Related articles