Soldermask removal from copper polygon

[Araho]

Hi!

It's me again, with another Altium-related question.

I've got some slight issues creating polygons in the soldermask layer, when copying a polygon from another layer. I have an outer polygon on a round circuit-board, constrained by belonging to a net called E_SHIELD. Between the outer ring and the inner area I have a keepout line, to make the polygon fill stop. This works beautifully to create both the inner (GND) and outer (E_SHIELD) polygons (See picture 2 for polygons in copper layer) (and yes, I probably need a larger clearance from the board edge *checks design rules* ).

The outer polygon is supposed to have no soldermask, so after reading the forum topics, I tried copying the polygon and then changing the layer to Top Solder. However, this leads to what is seen in picture 3, which is basically nothing (both before and after a repour). The polygon is selectable in the correct layer, but as long as Remove dead copper is selected, nothing gets drawn. However, if I remove the checkbox and then repour, picture 4 happens: A flood fill that doesn't match the constraints on the copper layer.

I've obviously botched/misunderstood something in the way Altium works with polygons, but I really hope I won't have to draw the regions in the soldermask layer by hand, because of all the curves etc. Does anyone have a tip to how I can fix this, and the way I should do this from scratch in the future to avoid these kinds of issues?

Araho

[Rufus]

Explode the copper polygon pour to primitives which will create a region then move the region to the desired layer.

[Araho]

Ah, genius! I'll try that! 

[Araho]

Yup, worked perfectly! Thanks, I learned something today as well

[T3sl4co1l]

Note that, obviously -- the mask will never refresh when the original poly is repoured, so you have to repeat that every time it changes.  Which hopefully won't matter in this case, but keep it in mind.

Tim