DraftSight: Selection Filter

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Following my blog on the Select Matching command, it’s become one of my most used DraftSight features. Whenever I’m looking to highlight entities with specific matching properties, it’s a great go-to operation.

That said, I often find myself looking to highlight more complex combinations of similar entities, which the Select Matching command can’t do. For example, if I want to select entities of more than one specific layer or line color at the same time.

So, as always, I did some command searching and luckily, I found the Selection Filter feature – which does exactly that!

I’ve found that using Selection Filter gives me the most control and precision while drafting, because I can make my selection pool as narrow or as general as I want – in a quick and straightforward way.

When entered into the command line, a Selection Filter window instantly appears. Then, just press the Add Entity icon in the upper right corner, and the window will temporarily disappear for you to choose your entity from your drawing window.

Once you’ve specified your entity, the window will reappear listing all of your chosen entity’s properties in a two-column table format.

More specifically, each row of the column lists a certain property Filter, and your chosen entity’s Value. For example, if the Filter is Layer, the Value will be the Layer your entity resides in.

From there, DraftSight allows you to add as many entities as you want to your Selection Filter (by reselecting the Add Entity icon).

You can also remove rows from your Filter table (by selecting a row and pressing the Delete icon), or add new rows (by choosing a Filter Type and pressing the green “+” icon beside it).

Once you’re satisfied with your Selection Filter criteria, you can either save your filter for later use (by naming it and pressing save) or click on OK to use it right away. Then just select your entire drawing in your graphics display, and only the entities that align with your Selection Filter will be highlighted.

So, I hope this post encourages you to start drafting with Selection Filter!

Check out the video below to see what it can do!

 

Learn more at DraftSight.com!

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