Working with Selected Civil 3D Objects : Are They Selected or Not?

Cad Panacea's own rkmcswain recently wrote on how to verify objects in AutoCAD Civil 3D were selected. It could be a bit confusing, but rkmcswain outlined some useful steps on how to go about this.

"Generally speaking, in AutoCAD you either select one or more entities and choose a command -or- you choose a command and then select one or more entities. When you are finished with the command, AutoCAD returns to the previous state where nothing was selected. I have noticed a different behavior in Civil 3D when working with C3D objects. When you select an object and perform certain commands (such as properties), when you are done the object remains selected. Ok, I can live with that, but in some cases the visual indicators (highlighting and grips) vanish, giving you the impression that the object is not selected - when in fact it is selected."

Using Civil 3D 2013, follow these steps.

• Select a pipe network structure or pipe

• The item should highlight and grips should appear (most commonly, but it depends on your local setting)

• Click "Structure (or Pipe) Properties" in the ribbon to open that dialog.

• Click OK to close that dialog.

• Is the structure/pipe still selected? It doesn't appear so (no highlighting and no grips), but it is.

• It takes an ESC to clear the selection.

• If you do not ESC and then go to erase/copy/move something, you'll grab the structure/pipe also!

IMO - Either the visual indicators of something being selected should remain -or- the selection should be cleared when the command is over.

One workaround is to set PICKADD = 0 which will clear the last selection when you select something else.

Hope that helps you guys out!