Electronic – Rotating components in Altium Designer, clearance

Note: This was written for Altium 19.0.12 (latest at time of post). It should also work for previous versions, although there may be some visual changes.

This is caused by a component clearance constraint violation.

You can add another rule that applies to the shield footprint with the minimum height set to 0.

Open the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor under Design->Rules, and navigate the tree on the left of the new dialog window to Design Rules->Placement->Component Placement. Right click on Component Clearance and select "New Rule"

Configure the new rule so it applies when the first component matches a component with the designator for the shield footprint, and where the second object matches any component. Set the vertical clearance mode to "Specified" and set the minimum horizontal and vertical clearance to 0.

Apply the changes before closing the window. Check that your new rule has a higher priority than the original clearance rule by clicking on the Component Clearance section in the same PCB Rules and Constraints Editor window that you've been working in (visible in the second picture).

The solution to this was as @ConnorWolf has mentioned in the comments.

"Too lazy to write a proper answer, but you need to generate 3D bodies for your parts. Altium uses enclosing rectangles to do collision detection if you have not defined a 3D body for the part."

Adding 3D bodies solved this problem when rotating parts other than by 90deg increments.