Awesome Selection Filter Saves You Time!

Pssst! C'mere.

Wanna know a secret? The Selection Filter command is one of the most commonly overlooked, new features of DesignCAD 3D MAX Plus. All DesignCAD 3D Max Plus users need to know about it and how to use it. It's the best Selection Filter in the CAD market and can save you huge amounts of time.

DesignCAD's Selection Filter command is used to easily restrict the entities that can be selected or deselected. This allows users to drag a selection box around a number of entities and select only entities that have certain characteristics, instead of everything inside the box. It can also be used to select all of the entities in the drawing that meet certain criteria. The drawing we'll use to look at the features of the Selection Filter is the Plane.dcd file that is included in the DesignCAD 3D MAX Plus sample drawings.

To start filtering a selection, just select the Selection Filter command from the Edit menu. The Selection Filter dialog box will appear.

Three basic tasks can be performed using this dialog box. Drawing items with given characteristics can be:  1) added to an existing selection; 2) excluded from the current selection; and 3) defined as a new selection. These actions are achieved either by clicking the appropriate action button (Add to Selection, Excluded Selection, and New Selection) to perform the action throughout the entire drawing, or by using standard DesignCAD selection methods (Ctrl and/or Shift, plus mouse‑clicking and selection rectangle combinations) in the drawing area.

The Select Groups Only, Select Solids Only, and Disable Filter checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog box are extremely simple to use. When the Select Groups Only option is enabled, only groups that have been defined in the drawing using the Group Define command can have their selection status altered. When the Select Solids Only filter is enabled, only solids will be affected by the Selection Filter. When the Disable Filter option is enabled, the filter restrictions are retained but ignored until the Disable Filter option is disabled.

The rest of the checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog box are also simple to use, but they each have parameters that must be set in order to be useful. These parameters are accessed using the tabs at the top of the dialog box.

Look at the tabs at the top of the dialog box. These are the additional entity characteristics that can be limited for the filter. Color, Entity Type, Layer, Line Type, and Block can all be used to limit the filter set. The important thing to remember is that once parameters have been set for a given Characteristic, only drawing items that match the parameter(s) will be affected by an action.

Notice the list of colors (complete with RGB values) on the left side of the Color tab. This list includes all of the colors that are present in the current drawing. To add a color to the filter set, highlight the color in the Available Colors area and click the Add button. The Select by Color option is automatically checked when the first color is added.

Items of the selected color may now be added to an existing selection, excluded from the current selection, or defined as a new selection.

For example, if the tan color which has the RGB value (220, 170, 124) were added to the filter set, only drawing entities of that color would be selected if the New Selection button were clicked.

If the Excluded Selection button were clicked, all drawing entities except those of that color would be selected.

Entity Types, Layers, Line Types, and Blocks can all be filtered in the same way. These capabilities are useful enough by themselves. The really impressive aspect of DesignCAD's Selection Filter is that multiple characteristics can be filtered simultaneously.

That means that if the same color were left active in the filter, and Plane entities were added to the filter, only planes of that color would be selected if the New Selection button were clicked.

Can you imagine trying to select all of the planes of a particular color, one‑by‑one in a drawing like this? Many of you probably can, because you've done something similar, whether it was in DesignCAD or another CAD package. Those of you who have performed similar tasks probably have unpleasant adjectives like "boring, tedious, and time‑consuming" running through your head. DesignCAD 3D MAX Plus replaces those words with "easy, instantaneous, and—Selection Filter."