Many drafters do not entirely understand that they create a selection set when they ‘pick’ an item(s) in a drawing using their pointing device (usually a mouse or trackpad). Once a selection set is created, it can be manipulated differently.
Tip: If you watch carefully in the Command area when you ‘pick’ (select) an entity in response to a command, you will see the notation ” Select object – 1 found. 1 object added to the selection. Total n objects in total” where n stands for the number of objects that you have ‘picked’ as you create a set.
A selection set is a group of objects you can modify with a command. For example, a group of objects once selected can be moved, scaled, changed to a different layer, etc., in one single operation. Various ways of making selection sets exist, such as using a window, setting a crossing box, or picking entities sequentially. You can change the object selection settings by clicking on a button in the Properties window.
Tip: The Selection option on the tools drop-down menu can assist in creating and manipulating a selection set.
Operating on a selection set
Here we show that drafting efficiency can be improved by using a crossing window to grab all entities in a crowded part of the drawing. We then change our focus to the properties box and filter the entity group till we isolate the desired entity. This technique can easily make changes to properties such as layer, linetype, colour, and stack order.
Here is another movie showing how to filter and operate on selection sets in landscape drawings. We select several ‘errant’ plant symbols in a crowded drawing and move them to their correct layer