Exporting 2D part outline data from Altium?

Question

Anyone know if there's a way to export Altium PCB part outlines (I don't care about the detailed view of a part, just its physical 2D circle or polygon envelope) to an easy-to-parse output file?

I need to draw some annotations + would like to handle them programmatically rather than manually, using some data processing scripts I am writing. I need to get coordinate data of a few dozen parts automatically, so it's not practical for me to get the coordinate data manually, since it would take me several hours, and I would have to redo it during layout changes.

Answer 1

Have you looked at exporting your PCB as "ASCII"?

http://www.eurointech.ru/products/Altium/Protel99SE_PCB_ASCII_File_Format.pdf

In my Altium, Mechanical 13 is the part outline layer.

You could find this layer in the PCB file and parse though it, I think.

Answer 2

I think the easiest way to do its to select the layers (shorcut "L") that you want and take a screen shot.

Other thing that you can do is Print Preview and select just the layer you want.

File > Print Preview > Right Click in Preview > Configuration...

e.g. Create the circle or polygon in a mechanical layer and print it as a .pdf.

Other way to to it is export and edit later with some annotatios with another program.

as gerber: File > Fabrication Outputs > Gerber Files

as AutoCAD: File > Save As > Type Export AutoCAD Files (*.dwg, *.dxf)

as STEP: File > Save As > Type STEP (*.stp, *.step)

Answer 3

You could probably do this using Altium's Built-In Script Engine.

From the Script you can access all properties of a part (incl. the tracks it's made of). Yet, this will require some intense work. You might want to start here: http://wiki.altium.com/display/ADOH/Using+the+Altium+Designer+RTL