Datasheet

WORKING WITH OBJECTS
31
The four chairs help to demonstrate some of the other selection methods available to you. First,
let’s look at another property of the selection window.
1. Click the Select Object tool, or right-click and choose Select from the quad menu.
2. Click a blank spot in the viewport to clear your selection set.
3. Click and drag the cursor from the point indicated in Figure 1.16.
Figure 1.16
Selecting points for a
crossing window
4. Drag the rectangle up and to the right so that it completely encompasses one chair but just
a portion of two other chairs, as shown in Figure 1.16. Then release the mouse button. Three
of the four chairs are selected.
Notice that you didn’t need to enclose the chairs completely to select them. In the current selection
mode, you only need to have the selection window cross over the desired objects. This is known as a
crossing window. If you’re an AutoCAD user, this type of window should be familiar to you.
You can change the way the selection window works by using the Window/Crossing Selection
tool. The following exercise demonstrates this.
1. Click on a blank area in the drawing in order to clear your selection set.
2. Click the Window/Crossing Selection tool in the Main toolbar.
Notice that the icon highlights in yellow and changes to one showing a sphere that’s com-
pletely within a dotted rectangle. This tells you that you are now in Window Selection mode.
3. Click on a point above and to the left of the front left chair in the foreground, as shown
in Figure 1.17.
4. Drag the rectangle down and to the right until it completely encompasses the two chairs
in the front, as shown in Figure 1.17. Then release the mouse button. Notice that the only
objects selected are the two chairs in the front.
When you use Window Selection mode, only objects that are completely within the selection win-
dow are selected. Unlike with the crossing window, objects that are partially inside the selected window
are omitted from the selection.
Click and drag
from here
to here
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