Explore the different ways to select objects in AutoCAD, including the use of noun-verb selection and verb-noun selection. Understand how to use various tools and options for selecting entities in AutoCAD such as the erase tool, pick box, window selection, crossing window, window polygon, crossing polygon, and the fence.
Key Insights
- The type of selection method chosen, noun-verb or verb-noun, depends on the user's preference and the specific project demands. Noun-verb selection involves selecting objects before activating a modify tool, whereas verb-noun selection involves activating a modify tool before selecting objects.
- Selection tools available in AutoCAD include the erase tool, pick box, window selection, crossing window, window polygon, crossing polygon, and the fence. Each tool affects how entities are selected and can be useful for different situations. For instance, a pick box suggests that we pick objects by clicking on them, while a window selection includes only objects that are fully inside the selected area.
- Advanced tool options such as selection cycling may be useful in certain situations, especially when dealing with drawings that have stacked lines or many lines in a single area. However, for most professional workflows, selection cycling is not necessary.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, I want to take a few minutes to talk about how we select entities or objects in AutoCAD. There is no data set provided for this video.
Please follow along by drawing some geometry and a new template file if you'd prefer, or if not, feel free just to watch. Throughout this course, we have not yet needed to select existing geometry, except while using a certain number of modify tools. Remember, earlier on in the course, we talked about noun-verb selection and verb-noun selection.
When we use noun and verb selection, that means selecting our objects first, and then activating a modify tool. And when we talk about verb-noun selection, it is activating a modify tool, then making our selection set. Remember, if you have the option turned on in your options dialog box, you can do either workflow.
In this video, we'll primarily use the erase tool first, and then select our objects, which is again a verb-noun selection. Just know that when you're working through your AutoCAD projects, sometimes it's easier to do noun-verb selection, and sometimes it's easier the other way around. So let's get started.
I'm going to select the erase tool, and you'll notice that AutoCAD forces us into a pick box. A pick box suggests that we pick on objects by clicking on them. So I will come down and begin to click objects, and I do not need to activate any modifier keys in order to add to my selection set.
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But if I would like to remove something from my selection set, I can hold shift and click the object again. Now of course, I could hit ENTER to complete this, but I'll hit escape so that my objects remain on the screen. Picking is one of the easiest ways to select objects, and you'll notice that our crosshairs without any tool active automatically has a pick box.
I can see that when I hover over an object and it is included in my pick box, I can click it to select. I'll activate eraser again, and this time I would like to force a window. A window selection can be activated by typing in W, enter, and you'll notice that my crosshairs go from a pick box to just crosshairs.
Now a window selection is from left to right on the screen, and I will make my window starting here and moving across the screen to here. Now before I click, you'll already be able to see what will be included in my selection set. It's the lines that went gray instead of white.
These are fully included in a blue window. Only objects that are fully inside that blue shape will be included in the selection set. I can also make a window by going from the bottom and up to the right.
So W, enter. I'll start my window here and move up to the right. I'll hit escape, and let's do this again, but this time with a crossing window.
So I'll go to erase, and this time instead of W, enter, I will go C, enter. Crossing windows go from the right to the left, and again I'll start at the top right around here, and notice this time it's a green shape with a dashed line, little marching ants around the sides, and this time no matter if the shape is fully enclosed or if it simply crosses that dashed line, it will add the object to the selection set. We can see in this instance every single object is either fully enclosed in the green shape or crosses our dashed line.
Without any tool selected, you can see that in addition to the pick box, we have our crosshairs. I can begin to activate a window or crossing window at any time without any tool active. You may have also noticed that there is a window or crossing lasso, and this can be activated by clicking and holding with your mouse.
If I wanted to select just these objects with a window, I could start here with no command active, click and hold, and begin to draw around them while holding my mouse. I can do the same thing if I start to go to the left. I'll begin a crossing lasso.
Sometimes using the lasso is difficult because we cannot fully understand the shape we're trying to make while we start drawing it. I'll activate eraser one more time, and this time I want to activate a window polygon. This can be activated by WP enter, and I can make a similar shape, but by clicking one at a time, I can create any shape polygon.
Hit ENTER to finish creating your polygon shape. CP enter activates a crossing polygon, which does the same thing as a window polygon, but creates a green crossing outline. There's one final selection option I want to show, and that is fence.
I'll go eraser one more time, and fence is F enter, and fence is similar to a crossing window, except it only draws a connected series of lines. So there's no window involved. Now notice that when I click here, I will add those two lines to the selection set, and if I move my mouse across these two lines, it looks like they have been added to the selection set.
However, if I hit ENTER, you'll notice that only the two lines on the left were added. When using any of these options, you must finish the selection set by clicking to complete your windows, or hitting enter to complete your polygons or fence, in order to make sure that you have all selected geometry. I'll hit escape one more time.
You may see some people using something called selection cycling, and we will have that off for this course, but I'd like to show it in case it comes up in your workflows. If I come down to the hamburger options here, I can see that selection cycling is something I can turn on, and when I see the button, which are these two rectangles, one of which is green, I can click it to turn on selection cycling. Now, with no command active, I'm going to come up to this intersection, so you can see that I have a line and a circle in my pick box.
Now I'll see two rectangles appear when a selection cycling option is available. When I click, it will give me a selection dialog box, and it will allow me to choose between the objects I need. However, for this course, and in most professional workflows, you do not need selection cycling, because in this case, especially, I could have chosen the circle here, which is far away from the line, and I could have chosen the line here, which is far away from the circle.
However, if you get drawings that have stacked lines, or lines drawn on top of each other, or a lot of lines in a single area, selection cycling might be good to add. I'll turn off selection cycling, and hide its option. Please feel free to practice with selection options on your own, and as we move through the rest of the course.
I'll see you in the next video.
