Deleting Specific Objects within a Cell (Python Script/Macro)

Comments

• Matthias

  July 27

  Hi @Sharon,

  there is some confusion.

  First, you probably have not enabled "Select Top Level Objects" from the "View" menu. So in your first scenario, if you select things, you actually select shapes inside the pillar cell "1". When you delete them, the cell becomes empty in all places. From your perspective, that looks like the cell vanished. Instead it is still there, but empty.

  When you double-click the "1" cell, it becomes hidden. When you select the remaining boxes, you actually select "instances" (cell placements). If you delete those, the "1" cell becomes unplaced, hence vanished in those places.

  The code is not clearly saying what you intend to do. I think you don't really need to automate something. Just enable "Select Top Level Objects".

  Matthias
• Sharon

  July 29

  Dear Matthias,

  Thank you for your reply.
  The cell '1' is instantiated multiple times across the layout.
  

  However, I would like to delete only the instances of cell '#1' that are located in an "inactive region" and keeping all instances of cell '#1' that are within an "active region". My method is,
  1. Collect #1 cell location in active region
  2. Create #1-1 cell
  layer_index = layout.layer(pya.LayerInfo(1, 0))
  circle_cell = layout.create_cell("1-1")
  3. Draw shape #1 on circle_cell
  4. the instances circle_cell refer onto pillars
  circle_inst = pya.DCellInstArray(circle_cell.cell_index(), pya.DCplxTrans(1.0, 0, False, dx, dy))
  5. Delete #1 cell

  How can I copy_instances and copy_shapes the '#1' shape and instance located within the active region into a new cell named '#1-1', rather than creating a new '#1-1' cell and drawing shape '#1' on circle_cell ? Do you have a example for me? Thank you.

  Best Regard,
  Sharon
• tomas2004

  July 30

  Hello Sharon.

  I would suggest the following flow:

  1) Create the active region shapes and add them to a new region (the active region).
  2) Check for each instance if its bbox (instance.bbox) is inside the active region, if so, keep it (do nothing), else delete it (instance.delete).

  If you have instance arrays you should resolve them first...

  Cheers,

  Tomas
• Matthias

  July 30 edited July 30

  Hi @Sharon,

  If the instances you want to delete are made from array instances, the code becomes quite tricky. In the user interface, you can select the instances you want to delete. But if you select a part of an array, you first have to resolve arrays (Edit/Selection/Resolve Arrays) before you can delete individual instances. An array is a single object and you can only delete it as a whole.

  If that is the case here, automating this job is not a simple task of a few lines of code.

  Matthias
• Sharon

  July 31

  Hi Tomas,
  Thank you for your comment.
  My GDS is generated from Lumerical. I've confirmed that the instance is already resolved so that I can directly select and delete them.
  I use a similar method to yous.
  1. create a new layout "circle_cell" to draw a new circle shape (geometrically identical to shape of pillars cell #1) within it.
  2. traced (dx, dy) positions of all instances of cell #1 that are located within active region
  3. then to create new instance using circle_inst = pya.DCellInstArray(circle_cell.cell_index(), pya.DCplxTrans(1.0, 0, False, dx, dy)), and insert the new instance into pillars pillars.insert(circle_inst)
  4. do delete_cells("1") from pillars layout

  Hi Matthias,
  For this case, I know I can only delete it as a whole, I proceed by creating a new layout.
  This is my simple of layout where the instance of cell #1 are located both the active region (the region are also part of other cells) and inactive region. I don't know why cell #1 is generated in inactive region, but it need to delete it.
  
• tomas2004

  July 31 edited July 31

  Hello Sharon,

  My proposal is to just delete existing instances which are not inside an "active region" layer (10/0 in the example below), not to create new cells/layouts. To do this you can work with Regions, but they only work with shapes, so I use the instance bbox, which is a Box shape, for the Region operations.

  Original layout:

  

  Result after running the script:

  

  1) As mentioned before, instance arrays must be resolved prior to running the script as they will be checked and deleted as a whole. If preferred, this can also be done by script using the instance method .explode
  2) I used the bbox of the instance, but this can be refined to, for example, the shapes on a specific layer of the cell the instance refers to
  3) the script is in Ruby (I'm one of the few still using Ruby I guess, lol)
  4) the script is quite slow when the number of instances is huge

  The script:

  module MyMacro
  
    include RBA
  
  
  #---INPUT-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
        active_region_layer_number = 10
        active_region_datatype_number = 0
  
  #------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
        layout_view = Application.instance.main_window.current_view      
        cell_view = layout_view.active_cellview      
        layout = cell_view.layout      
        viewed_cell = cell_view.cell
  
        # create a Region for the "active region" layer
  
        active_region = Region.new(viewed_cell.begin_shapes_rec(layout.layer(active_region_layer_number, active_region_datatype_number)))
  
  
        # collect instances to delete
  
        instances_to_delete = []
  
        viewed_cell.each_inst do |inst|
  
            # add the instance bbox to a new Region
  
            inst_bbox = Region.new(inst.bbox)
  
            selection = inst_bbox.not_inside(active_region)
  
            unless selection.is_empty?
  
                instances_to_delete << inst
  
            end # unless
  
        end # each_inst
  
  
        # delete the instances outside the active region
  
        instances_to_delete.each do |inst|
  
            inst.delete
  
        end # each
  
  
  end # MyMacro
  

  Cheers,

  Tomas
• Matthias

  August 1

  Hi Thomas,

  thanks a lot for sharing the script. I recall there has been a discussion with exactly the same issue, but I can't find it. Maybe that was also a discussion on GitHub.

  Unfortunately the Forum system I am using is our of maintenance (project became a company, it got bought by investor, and he shut it down) and there is no chance of getting better search function

  Matthias
• Sharon

  August 6

  Dear @tomas2004 ,

  Your instructions were a huge help—thank you very much! I finally got them working in Python, even though you were in Ruby, lol.