About Using ECAD Assemblies
When you are working in an ECAD assembly, you can perform any of the following operations:
• Enter ECAD-MCAD collaboration
• Save the assembly as an EDA file
• Save the assembly as an IDX file
• Use the assembly to compare against during ECAD-MCAD collaboration
To perform the previous operations, remember these criteria about the ECAD assembly:
• Cannot be in an exploded state—Restore the assembly to the unexploded state.
• Must be in the Master representation—To change the representation of the ECAD assembly, right-click the top-level assembly or subassembly and choose > .
• Can be fully flattened—To preview the flat state of the board in the ECAD assembly, click
![](../../electrical_design/ecad/images/smt_flatpat_preview16x16.png)
in the Graphics toolbar. The flattened board opens in the
Flat Pattern Preview window. If the board cannot be flattened, you can edit it to resolve the problem.