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Capture the Perfect Selection Set in AutoCAD (Circles and Lines AutoCAD Tutorial)
2 Feb, 2009 By: Lynn AllenQSelect quickly gathers and counts your objects of choice.
We all know how to obtain a selection set of objects by manually selecting them onscreen. But what if you wanted a selection set of a certain type of object, such as text or a block? Or what if you wanted to take that one step further and wanted a selection set of all the text objects of a certain height or all the blocks with a certain name? Two commands allow you to filter objects by their properties: the ancient (but very powerful) Filter command and the newer (and friendlier) QSelect command.
I'm going to focus on the low-stress QSelect command for this installment of "Circles and Lines," but for those brave souls out there, feel free to take a look at the Filter command. The Filter command is nearly top secret nowadays; you won't find it in any menus or toolbars, so you'll have to key it in.
QSelect (short for Quick Select) first entered the AutoCAD world through the Properties palette (figure 1). It is just as easy to access it directly from the Tools menu or by keying it in at the Command prompt. Unless I am missing something, this powerful tool does not reside in the AutoCAD 2009 ribbon.
 Figure 1. Easily access QSelect from the Properties palette. |
So let's say I wanted to find all the blocks called Door in my drawing. Using QSelect, I can specify to search the entire drawing. Select Block Reference from the Object Type drop-down menu as well as Name from the list of block properties. I want to find all the blocks that have a name equal to Door, so I'll select "=" as the operator, and, finally, I'll use the drop-down menu to select the name Door. Figure 2 shows the selections needed to find all the Door blocks in an entire drawing.
 Figure 2. QSelect makes it easy to filter specific objects in a drawing. |
I want to include all the door blocks in a new selection set, so I will use the default and finally, an OK button will highlight all the door blocks as well as do a handy count — so powerful! At this point, I can enter the appropriate editing command or use the Properties menu to make changes to the selected objects.
If you want QSelect to search a specific group of objects, as opposed to an entire drawing, you can do so by manually picking the Select Objects button in the upper-right corner of the dialog box. You also can select objects first and then enter the command to get the same results.
So what if you want to select all the door blocks that have a rotation angle of 90 degrees? Unfortunately, QSelect only lets you apply one filter at a time (unlike the more stellar Filter command). You can, however, re-enter the QSelect command and apply a second filter to the existing selection set. Just make sure the Apply To option is set to Current Selection. You can repeat this process as many times as you need.
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AutoCAD Tips!
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst! |
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