Tip Tuesday: 3 ways to select an area in Fusion 360

Keqing Song April 1, 2014

1 min read

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Area selection is the method by which you can select more than one thing at the same time.  Area selection happens when you do a “drag” (LMB down, move the mouse, LMB up).  It comes in 3 flavors: Window Selection, Freeform Selection, and Paint Selection

 

area selection options.png

 

Window Selection

The default is “Window Selection”.  You simply draw a rectangle by two points around things in your model to determine what is selected.

 

Window Select offers two different interactions:

Upper-left to lower-right.  In this usage, only things that are completely inside the rectangle will be selected:

 

Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.16.45 AM copy.png Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.16.06 AM copy.png

 

Upper-right to lower-left.  In this usage, everything which crosses the rectangle gets selected:

 

Untitled-1.png Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.33.45 AM.png

 

Notice how much more was selected this way.  The yellow rectangle is a visual clue that you are doing a “crossing” selection, instead of the orange “inclusion” selection preview.

 

Freeform Selection

If you have your area select set to “Freeform Selection”, you can draw a less constrained shape to determine what is selected, instead of a rectangle.

Freeform Selection also has crossing and inclusion selection options.  Drawing your shape clockwise is an inclusion selection:

 

untitled2.png Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.40.16 AM.png

 

While counter-clockwise is a crossing selection:

 

untitled3.png Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.43.25 AM.png

 

Paint Selection

This kind of area selection allows you to select just by dragging the cursor over things you want to select. Paint Selection, by its nature, is always a “crossing” selection – anything the path of the cursor selects will be selected.  There is no “inclusion” selection with Paint Selection.

 

Screen Shot 2014-04-01 at 11.44.54 AM.png

 

 

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