Selecting one object at a time

After activating a command that requires an object or a set of objects to be selected, you can pick the objects one by one by pressing Space or the left mouse button near the object. To pick an object, the cursor must be able to "hit" that object. A hit takes place in a spherical or cylindrical hit space, and it can select an object if the object itself or its bounding box is intersected by the hit space. The radius of the hit space determines how far the object can be from the cursor to be hit, and this maximum distance is called the hit distance. The hit distance can be adjusted via the Set hit distance context-menu command of the work view.

If there is just one suitable object inside the hit space, then that object is hit, selected, and highlighted. If a wrong object gets selected, you can hit that object again or use Undo (U).

Most Plant Modeller pick actions are context-sensitive—they only allow you to pick objects that are of correct type in the given situation. For example, on the Layout tab, the Move tool only allows picking an object that is of type Structural or Equipment; all other types of objects are ignored, even if they are closer to the cursor in the direction of the hit. In the picture below, there is an air duct directly in front of the cursor, but Layout > Move picks the Equipment (pump) that is behind the duct part.

If you just click an object in a work view, you are picking that object for the Query Object command which then shows you information about that object.

Using a command that normally picks a single object at a time can still result in several objects being selected. For example, if the pick action targets a piping part that belongs to a pipe spool, then the whole spool can be selected. Or if you pick a manually operated valve that has a Service Space around the hand lever or wheel, then also the Service Space gets selected. You can prevent the automatic selection of linked objects from the context menu.

If you cannot pick the object that is behind the cursor, the cursor displays a lock icon. This might be due to wrong object type or insufficient hit distance, or the object might be checked in.

When you have picked all the objects you want the set to include, accept the selection by pressing Enter or selecting Done from the context menu.