Selection Sets

Posted July 29, 2008 * Comments(3)

Previously I wrote about using AutoLISP to create selection sets. While these are great, especially for use in scripts and macros, they are kind of clunky to use if you need a quick selection set. Here are a few quick and easy ways to create selection sets.

Command: QSELECT
QSELECT (Quick Select) is a powerful tool to include or exclude objects from a selection set based on Object Type and Properties. Apply it to either the entire drawing or selected objects. I wish there was a command-line version of QSELECT.

Command: FILTER
This is a very advanced tool to filter selections based on object type and properties. The nice thing about the FILTER command is that you can use it transparently within another command: ‘FILTER

Express Tools Command: GETSEL
This command will first prompt you to “Select an object on the Source layer” and then “Select an object of the Type you want”. This will select similar object types on similar layers. After you use GETSEL to create a selection set, run a command (such as MOVE, COPY, etc.) and when it prompts you to select objects, type P for previous.

Civil 3D Command: SelectSimilar
Since I use Civil 3D most of the time, this command is very useful for me. All I have to do is click on one or more objects, right-click and click on “Select Similar” (or type SelectSimilar on the command line). This selects similar object types on similar layers immediately. I can then run a command on those objects.

3 Comments so far

  1. CadKicks.com on August 14th, 2008

    Selection Sets…

    You’ve been kicked (a good thing) – Trackback from CadKicks.com…

  2. Avishek on December 13th, 2008

    i am not sure if you had a chance to use the "SS" selection set command in land desktop, which, by far, i used to like the most when it came to creating selection sets. but when i try the same in civil 3D, it says that the ss command is to be used thru another command. can you please shed some light into this?

  3. Josh Jones on December 15th, 2008

    ‘SS is a Civil 3D transparent command for “Side Shot”. I liked using SS in Land Desktop. It was pretty handy. If you wanted something similar, you could create an alias for the GETSEL command.

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