The AR Scene

The top menu consists of several key features that manage the user experience.

AR Stabilization

Slows AR Tracking to reduce overlay jitter at higher zoom levels.‍

Freeze Zoom

allows you to get all the benefits of AR tracking without having to place the circuit board physically beneath a camera. This is ideal for mobile users who need to free up a hand to do some work, or for situations where you need to physically put the board under a different piece of equipment to do work on it, like if you were using a hot air station. Unlike camera zoom, when you zoom during freeze mode you start to lose some resolution from your image. This is because we aren’t asking the camera to send back a higher resolution image, we’re just stretching an existing static image. This behaviour is no different then if you expand an image by dragging its corner in any document editor.

Stretch Zoom

is identical to Freeze Zoom, except it works on a live video feed. This is an extremely powerful feature -- it allows you to continue zooming when you start to lose AR tracking due to Camera Zoom. The only drawback is that the more stretch zoom you use, the less resolution is in the image which you are seeing.

Focus

Refocuses the camera

Focus Toggle

Toggles between manual focus and auto focus.

‍Automatic Focus directly leverages your camera's focusing algorithm to keep the board in focus even if it moves to a new perspective or focal plane. Some cameras are better at doing this than others, sometimes your autofocus algorithm will get repeatedly triggered making it difficult to bring the board in focus.

Manual Focus is a custom focusing algorithm we wrote with circuit boards in mind. Our manual focus algorithm will not get confused by glare on the solder mask, or a tall component like autofocus will. The reason we call it manual focus is that you will need to trigger it yourself whenever you notice the board go out of focus by pressing the crosshair icon

Active Overlay Pane

Active Overlays Toggle

Toggles the Active Overlays pane

Active Overlays pane displays all nets, components, and layers displayed

Users can show or hide overlays by selecting the eye icon on any active overlay, or may delete them by selecting the X icon

By selecting an active overlay, the user may explore any nets, layers or components connected to it via the info pane.

In addition, users can access the Layer Stack and the Opacity controls from this pane.

‍Layer Stack Toggle

Toggles the Layer Stack Pane

The Layer Stack allows users to alter the colors of layers

Color-by-Net

Users can use this tool to color specific nets.

Opacity

By manipulation the bar, users can change the opacity of any layer.

Info Pane‍

Toggle Info Pane

Toggles the Info Pane

The information window gives you information about the overlays you are seeing. From here you can request part information, dynamically edit an overlay, and browse connected nets and components from 3 tabs

Edit Overlay

In this tab, users can edit what parts of the AR overlay are seen.

Overlay Information

Displays information about the current active overlay, and from here users can access part information and datasheets

Attached Components/Nets/Layers

In this tab, all connected layers, nets and components of the active overlay are accessible

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Add Overlay Pane

Add Overlay Toggle

Toggles the Add Overlay Pane

Users can search for specific components, nets and layers from the Add Overlay pane, and can also search via specific parameters such as all 10k Resistors if the account is linked with Digi-Key.

Attachment Viewer Pane

Attachment Viewer

This function allows the user to view PDF's, images, and other documentation that have been attached to the project‍

Saved States

Saved States

Saved states allow users to 'save' overlay configurations of nets and components for later use or to share with teammates.

Comments

Comments

This function allows users to add a comment to any overlay to share with teammates.‍

Screenshot Markup Tool

Screenshot Markup Tool

This feature will take a screenshot of the current view in inspectAR and then the user can mark the photo saved much like a paint program. The photo is saved and can be shared with anyone the user chooses.