Xsection thickness issue when growing laterally

mikamar

Hi-

Sorry in advance for not attaching images. My employer is blocking image upload outside my org :(
so I used text and formatting and it all became very colorful

The issue I noticed is that I can't get the thickness correctly when I place a ruler parallel to the edge where I use lateral growth.

Example: 
If I draw a box (let's say 0.2x0.2) and place two rulers: 
ruler1 - vertical thru the middle of the box
ruler2 - horizontal 0.05 above (and parallel to) the top edge of the box

             |
             \/
    ->  _________   <-- ruler2
       |         |
       |         | 
       |_________|
             /\
             |
          ruler1

Then I use the box as mask to grow 0.2 thickness of material1. 

After that, I deposit additional material2 (no mask) with thickness and lateral growth of 0.1 using expression: grow(0.1,0.1)

I get the following results:
Ruler1 shows a the wrap around of material1 around material2 as expected.
The vertical arrows I drew below are where Ruler2 is placed - right thru the lateral growth 
              |
             \/
             _____________________
            |   _______________   |
____________|  |       Mat1    |  |_________
|______________|______________ | _____Mat2____|    
             /\
             |              
        
For Ruler2 I get thickness of 0.1, instead of the expected 0.3.
__________
|__Mat2__|   

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks and Regards, Mikamar

tomas2004

Hello,

You don't have anything drawn under ruler 2, so you only see the bulk all the way along ruler 2, you don't have any (transitions to) material 1 here, hence you only apply material 2 (0.1) all the way along ruler 2...

Cheers,

Tomas

mikamar

Tomas -

In my humble opinion, if the design & xs file create a material in a location it should be visible in the xsection. It should not matter that initially nothing is drawn under the ruler.

For example, if I leave the ruler as is but use a sized box as a mask for Mat1 (large enough so it covers the ruler) I do get the Mat1 in the xsection although nothing is drawn under the ruler.

Regards, Itamar

Matthias

Hi @mikamar,

you have a misconception of the XSection abilities. It is NOT a 3d technology simulator. It is a simplistic implementation and cannot capture effects from structures left or right of the ruler line.

You can capture the effect to some extend by oversizing the input layouts using the "size" operation on original layers. You can then compensate that with the "bias" option of "grow". The original layer "size" will make the layer grow laterally and cut the ruler then. But this complicates the script and is not always a good solution - for example over + undersizing will close gaps smaller than 2 times the size value.

After all, please adjust your expectations. XSection is nice for creating documentation images and for teaching, but is not a precision tool and is likely to give incorrect results if not used properly. It is a tool for people who know what they are doing.

Matthias