Support Selection

The following selection modes are commonly available for selecting geometry:

• Click geometric entities to select them; click additional items to add them to the selection.
• To remove a piece of geometry from your selection, click on it again.
• Some features limit the types of geometry that you can select.

If the current process allows multiple selection modes, icons for the available modes are displayed near the model. A few of the possible modes are described here:

	Select entities manually; this is the default.
	Limit the possible selections to faces only.
	Limit the possible selections to edges only.
	Limit the possible selections to vertices only.
	Select edges and propagate the selection. Move the pointer to the desired starting edge. An arrow indicates the propagation direction (based on the nearest end of the edge); move the pointer to change the direction. Once the correct direction is shown, click to select the edge. All the connecting edges in the chosen direction are highlighted. To complete the selection, click the last edge that you want to include.
	Propagate a face selection to nearby or connected faces. Select the initial face, choose the propagation method, and click Propagate. By Angle Enter a value for the Angle. Adjacent faces that join the selected face at less than the entered angle are added to the selection. Propagation continues through successive sets of adjacent faces until an angle exceeds the entered value. By Tangency Adjacent faces are added to the selection as long as the faces are joined along a tangent. Propagation continues as long as the connected faces are all joined along tangent lines. By Curvature Enter a value for the Curvature. Adjacent faces are added to the selection as long as the faces are joined along a tangent and the curvature radius of the adjacent faces is greater than the specified value.

Some features require more than one geometry support. In this case, only one support field has focus at any given time; the selections you make on the model are added to the support field with focus. Click in a geometry support field to give it focus (indicated by a blue background in the support field).

You can view a list of all the geometry selections for a support. To see the list, double-click the support field or right-click and select Open List. To delete any of the geometry selections, right-click and choose Remove.

You can also click Extract list to open the list in a separate dialog box.

When you work with assemblies, you often need to select surfaces or components that are obstructed by other components in the model. Instead of using the traditional hide/show or deactivate/activate tools to adjust the model display, you can use the digger tool to temporarily disable faces or entire components in the model view.

To use the digger, move the pointer over the assembly component that you want to disable and press F6 to remove only the surface directly under the pointer or F7 to disable the entire component. The disabled surface or component becomes translucent and can no longer be selected; you can now select surfaces or components behind the translucent component. You can use F6 and F7 repeatedly to remove additional surfaces or components in your assembly, effectively "digging" into the interior of your model.

To restore surfaces or components to the display:

• Click the background or press F8 to restore all disabled items.
• Press F9 to restore only the most recently disabled surface or component; you can continue pressing F9 to restore disabled items in reverse sequence.

Some features allow (and sometimes require) the selection of named geometric entities or other existing features as supports. A drop-down list appears next to each support field in the dialog box; the icons in this list represent the current selection mode:

• Select: Select geometric entities directly from the model.
• Publication: Select a named geometry publication.
• Group: Select a named group of mesh objects.
• Mesh part: Select a named mesh part.
• Connection: Select a previously defined connection feature.
• FEM feature: Select a previously defined feature in the FEM representation.
• Sim feature: Select a previously defined feature in the simulation.

When you choose a mode other than Select, a selection tree appears containing all of the appropriate entities in the current model; click on a name in the tree to add it to your selection. Type a string in the Filter field to display only names that include a match for your string sequence. You can use [Ctrl]+[Click] to add multiple selections to the support.

When you select a face on a 3D body, the feature is always applied on the exterior side of the face. When you select a 2D surface as a support, both sides of the face could be considered exterior, and the side on which the feature should be applied is ambiguous.

If your support selection includes surface geometry, a side selector button becomes active in the dialog box next to the support field. Glyphs or highlighting on the surfaces in the model indicate which side is currently selected. Clicking the side selector button changes the selection to the reverse side of the surfaces (the button changes to ). For some features, clicking the side selector button again selects both sides of the surfaces (the button changes to ); for features that do not allow double-sided surfaces, the selection reverts to the initial side. You can continue to click the side selector button to cycle through the available selection possibilities.