How to change the cursor to cross in cadence virtuoso layout

Using the Display Options Form
The Display Options form controls the appearance of objects and the behavior of commands in this cellview.


Nets shows flight lines between objects on the same net. If your design contains many nets, your screen may turn white, causing the instTerms on top of the instance to not be seen. To see the instTerms, turn on Instance Pins and the flight lines will not display, allowing the instTerms to be seen.

Access Edges shows routing edges of pins.

Instance Pins shows pins in instances.

Array Icons shows outlines of array cells when Display Levels suppresses cell details.

Label Origins marks the origins of labels with diamond markers.

Dynamic Hilight marks the edge, object, or point that would be selected if a point selection were made. When Dynamic Hilight is on and your cellview contains a large number of objects, cursor motion may slow down. You can increase the cursor motion speed by turning this off.

Net Expressions displays the net expression instead of the terminal name of a pin. When there are net expressions in instances, the terminal name is displayed, not the net expression, even when Net Expressions is set on.

Stretch Handles displays the handles on a Relative Object Design parameterized cell (pcell) that indicate that the pcell can be stretched. A stretch handle is a named set of coordinates assigned to a specific parameter of the pcell. Stretch handles look like small diamonds. For information about stretchable pcells, see "Stretchable Parameterized Cells" in the Virtuoso Relative Object Design User Guide.



Axes displays the cellview X and Y axes.

Path Borders shows the border edges of paths. Turn it off to display only path centerlines.

Instance Origins marks cell instance origins with diamonds when you set Display Levels to show only instance outlines.

EIP Surround (edit-in-place) displays the surrounding design when you edit a cell in place.

Pin Names shows terminal names of pins that have pin name text displays.

Dot Pins displays the centers of dot pins with diamond markers.

Use True BBox when on, displays the instance master bounding box. When off, displays the cellview bounding box, which can cause large designs to open faster because masters are opened down to the display stop level only.

Cross Cursor displays the cursor as dot shaped or as dotted-line cross shaped.

Via Shapes displays via attributes. When Via Shapes is set to off (the default), vias are displayed as the bounding box of each via. When set to on via attributes are graphically displayed, resulting in detailed images. For large designs, setting via shapes to on will increase the amount of time it takes to render a design.

Show Name Of, when Display Levels is set to show only instance outlines, sets whether the instance name (for example, I1) or the master cell name appears on each instance.

Array Display

Full displays all instances in the array.


Border displays only the instances around the outside edge of the array.


Source displays only the instance at the origin of the array.


Display Levels sets the first (From) and last (To) levels in the design hierarchy that can be seen in detail. The hierarchy levels are numbered 0 to 32. The top cellview is level 0, instances inside of it are level 1, and so forth.

Type controls the grid display.

none turns off the grid display.


dots displays a dot for each grid point.


lines makes a grid of lines, like a graph.


Minor Spacing and Major Spacing set the number of user units between the visible grid. Minor grid points are white, major grid points are green by default.

X Snap Spacing and Y Snap Spacing set the distance at which the cursor can snap between grid points along the X axis and the Y axis. This is your drawing grid.

Filter determines how much detail of a design is displayed in the cellview. The filter can affect how fast the screen redraws. A smaller filter size allows more objects to display, which can cause the screen to redraw more slowly. A larger filter size allows fewer objects to display, which can cause the screen to redraw faster and can be useful when redrawing large, dense designs.

Size controls the size of the objects that are filtered out. With a smaller filter, more of the design displays. When Size is set to 3, the default, objects smaller than 3 pixels are filtered; objects larger than 3 pixels are not filtered.


Style controls how the filtered objects are displayed. Filtered objects appear either filled with their layer color, outlined with their layer color, or empty and nothing is displayed.


Snap Modes locks your cursor to the grid while drawing or editing.

Create controls how line segments snap to the grid as you create objects.


Edit controls how line segments of objects snap to the grid as you move or copy them and how edges or corners move as you stretch them.


Cellview specifies that you want to store, load, or delete the display settings to or from the cellview.

Library specifies that you want to store, load, or delete the display settings to or from the library of the edit cellview.

Tech Library specifies that you want to store, load, or delete the display settings to or from the technology library of the edit cellview.

File specifies the file to which you want to store or from which you want to load the settings.

Save To saves the current settings to either the cellview, library of the cellview, technology library of the cellview, or a specified file. If you are saving to a file, the settings from both the Layout Editor Options and Display Options forms are saved.

Load From sets the current settings to either the cellview, library of the cellview, the technology library of the cellview, or a specified file. If you saved to a file, the settings for both the Layout Editor Options and Display Options forms are loaded.

Delete From deletes the display settings that were saved to either the cellview, library of the cellview, or technology library of the cellview.

(from : http://jas.eng.buffalo.edu/courses/ee549/cadence/virtuosoDoc/chap4.html)