How to set default selection filters (nx5)? 1

[morans]

So I'm not sure what happened, but in the past week sometime my default changed from "no selection" to "solid body", but only for "analysis>measure distance". We use the "measure distance" command quite a bit to check wall thicknesses of castings among other things.

I looked through the customer defaults and cannot find anything related to this. It's annoying because it defualts back to "solid body" after every selection/mouse click.

Is there a way to set it back to "face" (or no selection)? We usually don't use that command in assembly mode, so having it set to body is moot.

Measure angle still defaults to "no selection" if that helps.

thanks

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, what you're experiencing is one of the more elegant aspects of 'dialog memory'. When you enter into a function which you are expected to select some sort of object, the 'Type Filter', as one would expect from the name, allows you to control what type of object you can select. Now in cases where this could be several different types of objects, and you've never used this function before, the default will always be 'No Selection Filter' meaning that you can select anything which is valid for this operation. However, you can change that to say, while doing an 'Measure Distance', Solid Body which means that only Solid Bodies can be selected. When you complete the operation and leave the function, it will revert back to what the global setting was prior to entering the function, which is usually 'No Selection Filter'. However, the next time to go to 'Measure Distance' it will remember that the last time you were there you were selecting Solid Bodies and it will return to that setting. Now not ALL functions retain the last filter, but many of them do (and that number will only increase over time), including, BTW, 'Measure Angle' (you've just never changed it while using it).

Note that if a function can ONLY select a single type of object, such as an 'Edge' when creating an Edge Blend, the system will automatically switch to 'Edge' and back to the current setting when finished and this is not really under the control of Dialog Memory as there is nothing to memorize since in this case the function is in 100% control of the Type Filter.

Note that this is working as designed and there is nothing that you can do to stop this behavior during the course of a session of NX, however, you can 'reset' all the settings between sessions by disabling the 'Save Dialog Box Settings between Sessions' option in Customer Defaults, but doing so will reset ALL dialog setting for all items, including the parameter values last entered in modeling dialogs.

Now to help you manage this behavior, may I suggest that in the Selection Bar (the same place where the 'Type Filter' and 'Selection Scope' options are located) that you enable the 'Reset Filters' icon (it looks like a swooping clockwise arrow). Whenever the 'Type Filter' is set to anything other than 'No Selection Filter' (except when there is only ONE valid type, such as I mentioned with Edge Blend), selecting this icon will 'reset' the 'Type Filter' back to 'No Selection Filter'. This is much quicker than having to expand the 'Type Filter' list and return it back to the default 'No Selection Filter' setting manually.

Anyway, give this behavior a while to become appreciated. I think you will find that having these choices remembered does help in the long run to make the system more efficient and your use of it more productive, but it does require that you understand what and why it's happening and that you have ALL the tools at your disposal, such as the 'Reset' icon, to help you manage the behavior so that the net effect is positive and not something that is seen as either being unpredictable or a distraction.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[morans]

Awesome John, that was a big help (as always). Thanks for not only taking the time to help out, but also for taking the time to explain what actually happens behind the scenes, for lack of better words, when a button is pressed.

It's appreciated.

cheers

 

[morans]

John, I have another quick one for you. In NX5 (it might be in NX4 as well... not 100% sure) I was pleased to see that you added a selection filter for "tangent faces", at least for the "replace face" command. This helped save a lot of time in our daily activities

however, quite often our customers will ask us to give them a presentation representing gas flowing through one of our compressor designs. To show this, we'll usually pie-cut parasolids of the compressor and change the interior face colors of the exhaust to red and intake to blue. This is a very tedious task and can take quite a while to select everything.

My co-workers and I were wondering if it was possible to add "tangent faces" to the face selection dialog. If it's not possible, do you plan on adding it in future releases? It would be very helpful.

thanks

 

[JohnRBaker]

Don't confuse 'Selection Intent' with the 'Type Filter'. The Type Filter is used to 'mask' which are the valid object types, while 'Selection Intent' controls how multiple examples of the same object type will treated while being selected. Now if there is a certain function which is current NOT using Selection Intent and thus getting that advantages that this offers when selecting multiples of the same object type then perhaps that functions needs to have a 'Selection Intent' option and we should avoid adding something to the 'Type Filter' which is really the purview of 'Selection Intent'. Exactly what function were you thinking would be enhanced with this change?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[morans]

well, for instance, if I were to do a presentation for a customer where they needed chamber one (on a complex casting) colored blue and chamber two colored red, I'd go into edit> object display, "select type" > "faces" and would have to click approx 1000 faces per chamber, ok it, and then pick the color/opacity/etc I wanted them to be.

If it gave a "tanget face" option, for the most part, I would only have to click one face and it should auto select anything tangent to that face.

I'm not sure if that was very clear, but I can upload a screenshot if need be. Having that dialog added to object display (and others I'm sure) would be tremendously helpful