Tuesday, April 6, 2010

AutoCAD 2011 object selection made easier

AutoCAD 2011 comes with a new useful and helpful feature.

Easily select overlapping objects using the new selection cycling functionality. You can enable selection cycling from a control on the Status bar (right click to access the Selection Cycling options). When you try to select an object that overlaps other objects, AutoCAD displays a list of all the overlapping objects. This works for both 2D and 3D. As you pass the cursor over an object in the list, the relevant object in the drawing highlights, click on any object in the list and it gets selected. You can also click on the same location multiple times and the objects with be selected one at a time. To filter the type of subobjects displayed (vertices, edges, or faces) use the SUBOBJSELECTIONMODE system variable. You can also set this option with the SELECTIONCYCLING system variable.

Wish for AutoCAD 2012: Selection cycling should benefit from also be able to show layer of objects. Imagine if you have two identical objects and only the layer is different.

Another thing that might be helpful is to be able to use the up and down arrows on the keyboard to activate the Selection dialog. Now you have to either stay still and click multiple times or to move the mouse to the Selection dialog box.

4 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 14, 2010

    This is crap. I have to use selection cycling, because in 'regular mode' even when object higlighted it picks other object when working on multiple 3d solids.... Is there other solution?

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  2. Is it yet possible to cycle through objects that are on a locked layer?
    We have an locked layer with closed polygones with objectdata (owners), Because every line is double its sometimes not possible to select the right individual object.

    greatings, Barend

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  3. I just tried in AutoCAD 2012 and was able to cycle through objects on a locked layer.

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  4. Thanks for checking.
    We are about to upgrade to MAP 2011.
    I hope that it is working there as well. gr, Barend

    ReplyDelete