A new selection tool has been added in SOLIDWORKS 2018 called ‘Select over Geometry’. This incredibly useful tool lets you drag a box or lasso over a model without starting the drag from a blank region of the graphics area.
It looks like this:
We’ve found the tool to be extremely useful when selecting small details on large designs, such as the example below where we have an image of a packaging line assembly that we’ve been working on:
Within the assembly we have an Electrical panel and the components in that panel are relatively small compared to the rest of the assembly.
Let’s say we wanted to delete all the terminals of the bottom rail. Ideally, you’d wannt to select them all using a window select, rather than selecting them individually from the graphics area or the assembly tree.
Let’s start in by zooming in normal to control panel.
We’ll then pick a point on the model to begin our window. Because the panel is in the background where we start our window, it automatically selects the panel rather than allowing you to create a window.
At this point we may try and temporarily hide the panel, to reveal empty space & allow us to create a selection window, however there are many components behind the panel, so this will not work.
The next step we’d would normally take would be to zoom out to empty space and create ourmy window, but because of the location of the terminal components within this assembly we would inevitably end up selecting items that are not required.
This is where the Select over Geometry tool comes in handy. You can simply toggle it on by selecting the command from the select drop down menu or pressing the ‘T’ key on your keyboard:
Once the tool is active you can create a window around the terminals (as shown below) regardless of the components in the background.
To finish, simply delete them from your assembly – Simple!
In summary: When Select over Geometry mode is active, you can do the following:
- Drag a box or lasso to clear the current selection and select different items.
- Shift + drag a box or lasso to add items to the current selection.
- Perform an operation on the current selection (for example, add fillets to selected edges), and then drag a box or lasso to make another selection.
We hope you found that useful!
Have you seen our blog archive where we have posted plenty of helpful articles? We also have a fantastic video library filled with easy-to-follow videos on a number of topics inspired by other SOLIDWORKS users – take a look. Also, don’t forget to follow Innova Systems on Twitter for daily bite size SOLIDWORKS tips, tricks and videos.
