Cadtales

AUTOCAD 2006/7: ROLL-OVER HIGHLIGHTING

by Jim Rogers, CADreps

AutoCAD 2006 incorporated a feature borrowed from its big brother, Inventor. The formal name for this feature is Advanced Selection Preview, however, roll-over highlighting appears to be a more common and descriptive name. When you pass your cursor over an AutoCAD entity it will “highlight” by thickening, turning into a dashed line, or both.
 
 This is a visual aid in quickly picking the right item, especially in a dense drawing environment.
 
 Roll-over Highlighting became a necessity in Inventor and other 3D feature based solid modeling programs because of the difficulty in maintaining visual contact with objects, faces and features during zooming, panning and 3D rotations. This feature is also utilized by the new Dynamic UCS function to move the UCS to the 3D face or surface under the cursor – permitting you to start drawing immediately rather than worrying about UCS orientation and placement.
 
 Roll-over Highlighting also saves time in AutoCAD 2D drawings by reducing zooming and panning. Highlighting Xrefs, Hatch patterns and Tables and large Mtext objects, however, can be visually distracting. So, we can utilize some selection preview filtering to exclude certain items from highlighting.
 
 Customize Roll-over Highlighting
 Open the Options dialog box by Right-clicking in the drawing area and selecting Options. Click on the Selections tab.
 
 Note the section labeled Selection Preview and the two check boxes just above the Visual Effect Settings button. Use these check boxes to adjust the Roll-over Highlighting to your needs. Uncheck both to disable the function.
 
 
 Click on the Visual Effect Settings button.
 
 The left side of the Visual Effect Settings dialog box controls Selection Preview effects. The right side controls Implied Window and Crossing Window effects.
 
 Click on the Advanced Options button.
 
 The Advanced Preview Options dialog box allows us to exclude certain items from the highlighting effect. They include items on Locked Layers, Xrefs, Tables, Groups, Multiline text and Hatches. Placing a check mark in the box will exclude the referenced item.
 
 Click OK on all dialog boxes to exit and retain your settings.