How Do I Turn on Selection Cycling in AutoCAD?
AutoCAD is a powerful software used for drafting and designing in various industries. One of the key features that AutoCAD offers is selection cycling, which allows you to cycle through overlapping objects or entities when selecting them.
This can be extremely helpful when working with complex drawings that have multiple overlapping elements. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to turn on selection cycling in AutoCAD.
Step 1: Accessing the Options Menu
To begin, open AutoCAD and navigate to the top-left corner of the application window. Click on the Application menu button (represented by an Autodesk logo) or type “OP” in the command line and press Enter. This will open the Options menu.
Step 2: Enabling Selection Cycling
In the Options menu, click on the Selection tab located on the left-hand side. This tab contains various selection-related settings that you can customize according to your preferences.
Note: You can also access the Options menu by typing “O” in the command line and pressing Enter.
Option A: Enabling Selection Cycling from Preferences
In the Selection tab, scroll down until you find a section called “User Preferences“. Within this section, locate the checkbox labeled “Allow press and drag for lasso’“. Check this box to enable selection cycling.
Option B: Enabling Selection Cycling from System Variable
If you prefer using system variables to enable or disable features, you can do so by typing “PICKAUTO” in the command line and pressing Enter. The default value for PICKAUTO is 1, which enables selection cycling.
If the value is set to 0, selection cycling is disabled. To enable selection cycling, simply type “1” and press Enter.
Step 3: Customizing Selection Cycling Settings (Optional)
If you want to further customize the behavior of selection cycling, AutoCAD provides additional settings to suit your needs. Below the User Preferences section in the Selection tab, you will find a category named “Selecting Objects“. Within this category, there are various options that you can adjust:
- Selection modes: You can choose between options like “All“, “Window“, or “Crossing” to define how AutoCAD selects objects when using selection cycling.
- Selection preview: AutoCAD can provide a visual preview of selected objects. You can enable or disable this feature by checking or unchecking the “Enable” checkbox.
- Show preview on crosshair grip: This setting determines whether the object’s preview should display when hovering over its grip point. Check or uncheck this option as desired.
You can experiment with these options and find the configuration that works best for you.
Step 4: Applying Selection Cycling
Now that you have enabled selection cycling and customized its settings (if desired), it’s time to put it into action. With a drawing open in AutoCAD, select an area that contains overlapping objects using any of the available methods (such as using a window or crossing selection).
As you hover over the selected area, AutoCAD will cycle through each object within that region, highlighting them one by one. To select a specific object, simply left-click when it is highlighted.
Note: You can also press the Spacebar key to cycle through the objects without clicking.
By utilizing selection cycling in AutoCAD, you can streamline your workflow and efficiently select objects even in complex drawings with overlapping elements.
Congratulations! You have successfully learned how to turn on selection cycling in AutoCAD. Now you can take advantage of this feature to enhance your productivity and accuracy while working with intricate designs.