Preselecting and Selecting Using the Pointer

This task explains basic selection techniques using the pointer.

  • Whenever you are not using an application command, the Select command is active. Using this command, you can select any object in your document. All the selection tools are available using this command.
  • When objects are selected through the Select command, a contextual menu named xxx object (when one object is selected) or Selected objects (when multiple objects are selected) is available.
    The commands available in this contextual menu are also available through Edit > xxx object or Edit > Selected objects.
    However, the contextual menu is not displayed if more than 500 objects are selected. To be able to display it, increase the value of the Limit display of manipulators to ... element(s) option accordingly.
Open the document Select.CATProduct.

  1. Click Select to enter selection mode, if it is not already activated.

  2. Point to the part of the object you want to select.

    As you point to objects, different parts of the objects are highlighted, in the geometry area, and the object name is highlighted in the specification tree:
    The identity of the preselected element is displayed in the status bar: 
    Highlighting is active only if you selected Preselect in geometry view (active by default) in Tools > Options > General > Display > Visualization. You can also set the preselected element linetype using the Preselected element linetype list.

    The face on the object opposite, for example, is highlighted in red.

    You can also use the same tab to set a variety of useful selection features including selected element color and pre-selected (highlight) linetype. Note that the selection color and pre-selection color are the same.
    In the geometry area, you can select the constituent elements of objects, in other words:
    • Faces
    • Vertices
    • Edges
    • Planes
    • Axes.
    Whenever you are using an application command, you can only select objects required as input for the command. For example, when creating a hole in a pad, you are prompted to select a face or a plane: no other elements can be selected.

  3. Once the element is highlighted, click on the object to select it:

  4. Hold down Ctrl and select another face to add it to the initial selection:

    Holding down Ctrl + selecting can be done in:
    • The geometry area
    • The specification tree
    • Lists in dialog boxes.

    Holding down Shift + selecting can be done in:

    • The specification tree
    • Lists in dialog boxes.

  5. To deselect, click anywhere in the background.

    Edges are highlighted as you point them and arrows are displayed to indicate to which element the edge belongs to. This is especially useful in case of overlapped elements as shown in our example:
    Pressing Esc deselects all selected elements.
  • The display of highlighted edges has priority on the display of other elements of the geometry.
    But if you select a global element of the geometry as the Product or the Part Body, the highlighted hidden edges are not displayed.
 
  • On certain objects, note that hidden faces and edges are also highlighted as you point at them. Hidden faces and edges are displayed in a different color:
 
  Refer to Selecting Using the Preselection Navigator for a more powerful method for selecting hidden or coincident elements.