D3PLOT 22.1

"QUICK PICK" Options

Across the top of the graphics area is a block of 2 buttons. These are referred to as the QUICK PICK ENTITY button and the QUICK PICK OPERATION button in the following section.

By default the ENTITY and OPERATION buttons are set to PART and BLANK.

Possible operation types are:
BLANK (default)	BLANK "Blanking" Controls the Visibility of Nodes and Elements
UNBLANK	BLANK "Blanking" Controls the Visibility of Nodes and Elements
ONLY	BLANK "Blanking" Controls the Visibility of Nodes and Elements
EDIT	Quick Pick Edit	}These options are }only available when }linked with PRIMER
PART TABLE	Quick Pick Edit	}These options are }only available when }linked with PRIMER
INFORMATION
COLOUR	Properties: Controlling colour, drawing style, transparency, lighting attributes and overlay of entities
TRANSPARENCY	Object Attributes
DISPLAY MODE	Display Modes
LABEL	Labelling
OVERLAY MODE	OVERLAY... Controlling the Hidden-Line Overlay of Element Borders On Data Plots
OVERLAY COLOUR	OVERLAY... Controlling the Hidden-Line Overlay of Element Borders On Data Plots
BRIGHTNESS	The "material" properties of the lit objects
SHININESS	The "material" properties of the lit objects
SHELL THICKNESS	Drawing Shells with Thickness
LOCATE IN TREE	Part Tree
TRACE	Trace
TARGET MARKER	TARGET_MARKERS Adding "Target" Symbols on Nodes
XY DATA (Only available by right-clicking on an entity)	XY_DATA Drawing Numerical Data as XY Plots and/or Writing it to File
PROPERTIES	Properties: Controlling Colour, Drawing Style, Transparency, Lighting Attributes and Overlay of Entities

Whenever these buttons are visible in a graphics window "quick picking" is active, and the cursor is live. Mouse buttons have the following functions:

Left	"Do" the operation. For example blank the entity if in BLANK mode, change its colour if in COLOUR mode, etc. Drag across the screeen using the left mouse button to selecet multiple entities by area.
Middle	"Undo" the most recent operation. Thus unblank the last pick, etc.
Right	Raise the full options menu for the selected object type, giving the option of performing any of the "quick" operations on it, regardless of the current mode.

In all cases the effect is immediate, for example clicking on a part to blank it results in the image being redrawn.

The ENTITY button can be used to access a popup via the right mouse button to change the default selection category from PART to any of the generic element classes that the model contains ( PARTS, NODES, SOLIDS, SHELLS, THICK SHELLS BEAMS, SPRINGS etc). INCLUDES may also be selected if there is a .ztf file.

PART s are a special case:

The default setting for PART picking is to pick parts of any eligible element type.

But because the default screen picking process will tend to pick 2D and 3D elements (because they have a finite area), it can be difficult to pick BEAM parts if they overlay 2D or 3D mesh.

Therefore it is possible to restrict the type of part to be picked by underlying element type.

INCLUDE s are also a special case:

INCLUDE files are selected by PART, meaning the entities in the include file that contains the PART definition are selected. The selection of include files is recursive, so entities in any child include files are also selected.

If an entity is defined in one include file and the PART is defined in another both INCLUDE files are selected.

COMPOSITE PLY s are also a special case:

Because a shell can be in more than one composite ply, the screen pick is often ambiguous. If there is more than one ply where the user clicks, all relevant plys are listed in a popup box as shown in figure. The user may then:

Click on an item to select that ply,
Select ALL the listed plys, or
REJ ect the selection and return to screen pick.

If the user drags to select plys by area, all relevant plys are selected.

If the user right clicks to raise the options menu, the ply is automatically chosen (either as the topmost ply if layups are set-up, otherwise as the ply with the lowest ID).

In addition to being able to BLANK items the OPERATION menu can be used to select the operations listed above to apply to the items selected.

The OPTION button can then be used to select which windows a blank is applied in; and which colour, transparency level, display mode etc that is applied to the item when it is selected on the screen.

(Not all options will be available for parent item types.)

All operations carried out using these options and the mouse are stored and can be undone using the MIDDLE mouse button. Furthermore all of these options can be used while animating. To indicate which operation is currently active the mouse symbol will change as is appropriate.

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