6.2.10 Cycling through valid selections

In some cases Abaqus/CAE is unable to differentiate between the object you have selected and other nearby or related objects. This ambiguity can arise as follows:

Abaqus/CAE reduces the potential for ambiguity by filtering your selection against the current procedure whenever possible. For example, if you are partitioning a cell, Abaqus/CAE prompts you to select the cell to partition. When you make a selection, Abaqus/CAE considers only cells to be a valid selection. Conversely, if you are creating a geometry set, Abaqus/CAE considers cells, faces, edges, and vertices to be a valid selection and the potential for ambiguity is increased. In addition, preselection highlighting allows you to see exactly which object would be selected before you make the selection. Moving the cursor around the viewport may remove the ambiguity in the selection and result in Abaqus/CAE highlighting the object of your choice. If the ambiguity remains, Abaqus/CAE changes the cursor, adding ellipsis marks (...) to the right of the arrow, and highlights all the possible selections.

When your selection is ambiguous, Abaqus/CAE displays buttons in the prompt area that allow you to cycle through all of the possible selections, as shown here:

Use the Next and Previous buttons to cycle forward and backward through all of the objects in the viewport that are possible selections; each object becomes highlighted in turn. When the object of your choice is highlighted, click OK or click mouse button 2 to confirm your selection. (You can also click mouse button 3 in the current viewport to reveal a menu of the options in the prompt area.)


For information on related topics, click the following item: