Repairing HyperLynx files

 We are using Altium designer to write out HYP files for HyperLynx. But some of our projects do not load in HyperLynx giving fatal errors on file loading.

Checking out Mentor(Siemens) support website, does not seem like I can enter my case problem there.

But let us see maybe we can see something in the file? The error at file load did give a line number in the source file, so looking at that place:

{NET=NetC147_2
  (PIN X=10.301860 Y=6.320791 R=L12.1 P=90)
  (PIN X=10.402907 Y=6.399201 R=C147.2 P=79)
  {POLYGON T=COPPER L="L 20 S" ID=24813 X=10.4702818 Y=6.3025418
    (LINE X=10.4642274 Y=6.2964874)
  }
  {POLYGON T=COPPER L="L 20 S" ID=24814 X=10.4522364 Y=6.3116777
  }

This is a snippet with good polygon and BAD polygon. It seems that Altium exports for some weird reason sometimes "empty" polygons with no primitives. Deleting those empty polygons, and voila my HYP file opens in HyperLynx.

Maybe I should report it as an Altium Designer bug?

Ah, where is the FIX? Well, our software designer wrote the utility that does remove those offending lines with less time I spent writing this blog entry. Needless to say, the utility worked. 

There is another bug with Altium HYP export: some PCB files with complex board outline will load wrong, they can look as if you have a triangle board outline. I do not know a real fix other than temporarily using a rectangular board outline for the HYP export process only.