Altium Designer 26.9.1. Build 10 (x64) Best PCB Design Software Latest 2026
Summary
Altium Designer version 26.9.1 (Build 10) is a 64-bit advanced PCB and schematic design software release that provides a unified environment for electronics design, from schematic capture to PCB layout and manufacturing output. The software is designed for electronics engineers, PCB designers, and hardware developers who need to create complex printed circuit boards with precision and efficiency.
With its unified schematic capture and PCB layout environment, native 3D visualization and clearance checking, ActiveBOM management for real-time bill of materials tracking, and Draftsman documentation tools for manufacturing data preparation, Altium Designer streamlines the entire electronics design workflow.
Advanced Polygon Pour Engine And True Arc Rendering
Version 26.9 introduces a new, advanced polygon pour engine that not only improves quality and performance but also produces ‘true arcs’ instead of approximations. This new engine enhances the accuracy of polygon pours around curved objects, improving both visual quality and manufacturing output. The new ‘Dynamic Polygon Pour’ feature enables repouring polygons on-the-fly during interactive commands such as routing or sliding, when the ‘Repour Polygons After Modification’ option is selected. This significantly reduces manual repour operations and speeds up the design workflow, particularly during iterative design modifications.
PCB Performance Optimization And Interactive Routing Enhancements
With the PCB.Performance.InteractivePropertyPanel.Optimization option enabled and a group of pads selected in the design space, attempting to use string substitution in the Designator field would result in literal use of the entry for all pad designators, rather than substitution being performed as expected. This issue has been resolved, ensuring proper string substitution functionality when working with multiple pads simultaneously.
When interactively routing using the ‘Any Angle’ corner style with weak glossing and conflict resolution set to ‘HugNPush Obstacles’, setting a high Miter Ratio would previously cause Altium Designer to freeze, requiring termination by the Windows Task Manager. This stability issue has been addressed, ensuring smooth routing operations even with aggressive routing settings.
True Arc Rendering Support Across Design Space
A new advanced settings option ‘PCB.Rendering.DrawArcBaseGeometry’ adds support for the rendering of true arcs in both the PCB editor and PCB Library editor design space, instead of approximations. This support extends across 2D/3D Layout Modes and can be seen for polygon pours, polygon pour cutouts, selection contours for polygon pours and regions, regions, solder mask and paste mask expansions, net highlighting, clearance boundaries, and violation overlays. True arc rendering requires the Advanced Polygon Pour engine to also be enabled through the Advanced Settings dialog. The Arc Approx. option for solid polygon pours is no longer available when using the new engine.
Enhanced Rule Import And Management
When importing one or more rule sets with the same name(s) as those that already exist, three actions are now available to handle the imported rules within a set: ‘Add to existing rules’ (add the imported rules, renaming those with duplicate names), ‘Add and replace matching rules’ (add the imported rules, replacing existing rules with the same names), and ‘Replace all’ (remove all existing rules in the set and import the selected rules). This enhancement provides greater flexibility and control when managing design rules across different projects or design iterations.
Harness Design Improvements
Support has been added for the ‘free’ rotation of a physical model view of a component within a layout drawing, allowing custom rotation angles through graphical rotation or direct entry in the Properties panel. A new ‘Assign Objects to Bundle’ feature enables reassignment of bundle objects where a wire could traverse more than one path between source and destination connectors. Support has been added for placing a ‘Segment View’ of a chosen bundle segment into a layout drawing, presenting the wires inside that segment with labels, colors, and thickness scaling. These enhancements significantly improve the design and documentation of complex cable harnesses.
OrCAD Importer Enhancement
The OrCAD Importer has been enhanced with support for the import of variants defined in an OrCAD design, requiring the Importer.Orcad.AdvancedEngine advanced settings option to be enabled. This ensures that imported projects include the same list of variants as in OrCAD, maintaining design intent and reducing manual recreation of variant configurations. The DNP (Do Not Populate) parameter added to specific components in OrCAD designs is now also imported correctly.
Supplier Data Merging And Data Management
The ‘Supplier Data Merging’ feature, delivered by the EDMS.CustomOffersMerge option, is now officially made Public with this release. This feature enables more efficient management of supplier data within the design environment. A vertical scrollbar has been added to the menu associated with the Active Server control, allowing easy access to all available Workspaces, especially where there is shared access to a considerable number of Workspaces. These improvements streamline component selection and supply chain management within the Altium ecosystem.
Data Management And Component Panel Improvements
The Components panel has been enhanced with respect to its usability when initially accessed, with the ‘All’ category now expanded by default and the Categories pane made visible when switching to Normal mode. The details section has been made visible and expanded in both modes, providing immediate access to component information without requiring additional clicks. When running a script within an active Output Job file to change output path for a Folder Structure output container, the last directory in the initial path would be lost. This issue has been resolved, ensuring complete path preservation during script execution.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What is Altium Designer 26.9.1 Build 10 used for?
It is an advanced PCB and schematic design software for creating complex printed circuit boards with unified schematic capture, PCB layout, and manufacturing output capabilities.
Q2: What are the new polygon pour features in version 26.9?
Version 26.9 introduces an advanced polygon pour engine that produces true arcs instead of approximations and a dynamic polygon pour feature that repours polygons on-the-fly during interactive commands.
Q3: What is true arc rendering in Altium Designer 26.9?
True arc rendering displays actual arcs instead of approximations in the PCB editor for polygon pours, cutouts, regions, solder mask expansions, and clearance boundaries.
Q4: What are the system requirements for Altium Designer 26.9.1?
The software requires Windows 11 or Windows 10 (64-bit), Intel Core i5 or equivalent processor, 4 GB RAM minimum, and 10 GB hard disk space.
Q5: What enhancements have been made to harness design?
Enhancements include custom rotation of physical model views, reassignment of bundle objects, and placement of bundle segment views showing wire layout inside harness bundles.
Q6: What is the OrCAD Importer enhancement in version 26.9?
The OrCAD Importer now supports importing variants defined in OrCAD designs, including DNP parameters for components.
