Selecting

For many options in Slide3 you are required to select aspects of an entity on the screen while creating and editing the model, for example:

• Geometry, for editing, applying loads, etc.
• Support (e.g. bolts) for editing
• Loads

Here are some useful tips to remember when selecting.

General Rules

When an entity is selected, it will temporarily change colour or line style, to indicate that it is selected. For example, selecting any geometry changes the selected vertex, edge, surface or entity to an orange colour.

Selection Mode

There are several Selection Mode options available in the toolbar or Edit menu you can use to capture the desired entity, face, edge or vertex. Only Geometry Entities can use the face, edge or vertex selection options.

• Entity Selection : Select the entire entity.
• Faces Selection : Select a plane on a Geometry Entity.
• Edges Selection : Select a line on a Geometry Entity.
• Vertices Selection : Select a point on a Geometry Entity.
• Face, Edge, Vertex Selection : Select the closest face, edge or vertex to your cursor. If you are not hovering over a Geometry Entity, the selection will default to Entity selection mode. If you double-click a Geometry Entity you will select the entire Entity.
• Disable Selection : no further item in the program will be selected, but you will not lose the previously selected items.

Selection Region Mode

There are several Selection Region Mode options available in the toolbar or Edit menu to select groups of desired entities, faces, edges or vertices by drawing a selection region around them using the mouse. Only Geometry Entities can use the face, edge or vertex selection options. To draw a selection region, do the following:

1. Hold down left-click and drag the mouse to draw a region.
2. Release the left-click when you have finished the selection.
   
3. Based on the Selection Mode, the entities, faces, edges and/or vertices that touch the highlighted region will be selected.

The regions can be drawn as the following shapes:

• Rectangle : rectangular shape.
• Lasso : freehand shape where the start and end points do not need to touch.

Below is an example where the Selection Mode is set to vertex only and a Rectangle Selection Region Mode (top) is compared to a Lasso Selection Region Mode (bottom):

Clear Selection

You can also clear all selections using the Clear Selection option in the toolbar or Edit menu.

Selection Window

Entities, faces, edges and/or vertices can be selected by drawing a Selection Region around them with the mouse (i.e. click and drag to define a region). This is useful for selecting multiple entities. When selecting entities with a window, there are two modes available that are activated by the direction you created your Selection Window:

1. Click and drag from left to right: Select Inside Only - this requires that items must be COMPLETELY within the window to be selected.
2. Click and drag from right to left: Select Inside or Crossing - this will select items within or crossing the window.

You will find the two window selecting modes to be useful in different situations, experiment with them to see how they work.

Selection from Visibility Pane

You can select any Entity in the Visibility pane.