WF2 boundary blend curve selection issue

Have you looked at the WF entity selection tutorial? (I haven't but this might be covered.)

To select a single segment of a multi-segment curve ... _Move the cursor over it so the curve (all segments) pre-highlights. _RMB. The pre-select will focus on the segment. _LMB to pick.

This applies if you have already called the Boundary Blend function. If you want to use a noun / verb workflow the selection method is a little different; select the curve (all segments) then RMB.

Ctrl+LMB on a selected entitiy will de-select. You can also Shift + LMB to de-select chain segments under certain circumstances.

When you select curves for a boundary blend, both first and second direction, it adds them to a list which is visible if you click on Curves on the Dashboard. From there, you can highlight one and RMB 'Remove' or 'Remove All'. I'm not sure of any other way to deselect. I had a problem recently of getting it to recognize two curve segments as a single one, to treat it as a composite curve. I fiddled around with it for the longest time and finally, after selecting the first segment, holding down the shift key and dragging the pointer from the first to the second segment, got the second to highlight and produce, effectively, a single curve. So, the selection process is or can be quite tricky and require a lot of patience and persistence. And I agree with Jeff's advice to go through the selection video.

First off, thanks for your response. And yes, I had went through the selection tutorial. That's one of the reasons that I was a bit frustrated with this issue.

For my *first curve selection* in the first direction, it behaved exactly as you have described above. Pre-highlighting worked just fine. However, with the Ctrl key held down, and hovering my cursor over the second curve that I wanted to select, pre-highlighting simply did not work at all. I had to click, and click, and click before the entire second Sketch curve would highlight in red. And once it did, all three entities were highlighted and it wouldn't allow me to de-select the two unwanted entities. I chose the Curves>Details>Add>Rule Based>Partial Loop option and this enabled me to complete the curve selection. At that point in time, I didn't remember your last suggestion below for the Ctrl+LMB for single entity de-selection. Next time I'll give that a shot for sure--because I don't *think* I tried that approach. I may have and just don't remember it I tried so many combinations out of sheer frustration. :-)

Again, thanks for your response. I would also like to thank David Janes for his response as well. As always, you guys are very helpful and it is most definitely appreciated!

Ron

This seems to be a good bit more complicated than I understood it to be. Your cogent and detailed presentation of the problem you faced was much more detailed than is the standard for this group. I often complain that users' questions are ingorant of technique, though they present technical questioins. Yours were fairly detailed, yet, in looking over your reply, it's amazing to see that detail was still lacking. What curves, for example, showed up in the 'Curves' dropdown list? Could you deselect from there? I'm happy to see that you did indeed use the selection video to acquaint yourself with the new selection process. While it leaves much to be desired, one thing is clear: you don't go from this simplistic tutorial to the most complex thing you can possibly find on which to try your these new found skills. Pick some simple stuff, work your way up, build your skill, a step at a time, with increasingly complex curve selection problems. If you jump in over your head right off and drown, who's to blame!?! Patience, persistence and a step-wise approach will pay big dividends.

We're happy to help fellow users, if and when we can. We always try but it's not always helpful. The more who try to help, the usually more successful the process is. Join us in trying to help other users.

David Janes

[Ron M. ] Only one item in the list. The entire Sketch. [Ron M.] Yes, but I could only de-select the entire Sketch and all of its corresponding curves went with it. :-( Absolutely no way around it. Again, I ultimately had to resort to using the 'Rule-based' option coupled with the 'Partial Loop' pick. But even then it was still sort of a hassle to end up with the appropriate curve segments being selected. Wildfire's behavior in the particular case has been extremely undesirable. I have confirmed that it most definitely wasn't me that was the problem. [Ron M.] I've created a bazillion surface features in the past that were far more complex than the one that Wildfire 2 was being finicky about this time. So there was no need for having to 'graduate' to something increasingly complex. The problem with this particular model was that pre-highlighting would only work for the first curve selection for the first direction. After that, pre-highlighting was unfortunately not available. So due to this limitation, I couldn't just right-click and choose Pick From List and then select the desired Sketch curve segment. What I found today for a workaround in a different model with a nearly identical set of curves is this. If I set the selection filter to Geometry first, then picked the first curve segment of the first Sketch feature, held down the Ctrl key and selected the second curve segment of the second Sketch feature, I could then choose the Boundary Surface icon from the toolbar and my First Direction Curves would already be defined as desired. Then it was just a matter of selecting my two Second Direction Curves which were *single entity* Sketch features. No 'pre-highlighting' was still an issue, but in this particular case I didn't have to concern myself with de-selection. Used the Ctrl key to select the second, second direction curve and had my boundary blend surface feature completed.

By my definition, at least in these two models, the software simply did NOT behave as it should have. I can use my two workarounds to ultimately create the surface features that I need, but it really doesn't have to be this cumbersome. I'm going to test this out in WF3 tomorrow to see if it is more cooperative for this type of surface feature's creation process.

Sorry my first 'technical explanation' didn't quite live up to your standards there David. ;-)

Ron M.

I'm not lookin' over your shoulder Ron, and often, it's a big help to see what someone is dealing with. But, let's parse what you've said: somehow, even taking the hypotenuses of two existing sketches into account, you wound up with a rectangular sketch. Am I right so far? Again, not looking over your shoulder on the techique you used, and just guessing on how this might have been done, but I'd guess the hypotenuses were put into the rectangular sketches as 'use edge' geometry. Then this geometry was tied together with a couple other sketched sides. Then, right after making this sketch, you picked the 'Boundary Blend' tool and the whole sketch ends up being selected. Naturally, this, and only this, becomes a candidate for de-selection. Is that the end of it? Do we, from there, naturally jump into some search stuff as the one-and-only-way to get this done? Well, I don't. Here's my technique: First, if the whole sketch is thick red, go into 'Curves' and do 'Remove'; then, after I put my cursor over the sketched geometry and it all highlights cyan, I do NOT pick the curve. I right click to select an individual curve from the chain and left click that to select it. (Or you could RMB 'Pick from list' and get the equivalent of the old Query Select list.) Then, holding down the Ctrl key, to pick the other first direction curve, I move the pointer over the parallel curve and right click 'query', then left click select that one. That's two first direction curves and if you were successful, the preview geometry appears in amber. The second direction curves are similar. Hover the pointer, right click cycle to a single curve, left click select, then Ctrl and right click cycle, left click select the second second direction curve. From your single rectangular box, you should have two each, first and second direction curves and a boundary curve surface.

Well, anyway, if that works, maybe you do, indeed, having something to learn about the new selection process. I know I'm still learning. And I'm confident that those who are not content to merely repeat how much they knew in the past and how much experience they've had will continue to learn, too. With patience and persistence

Then, I was thinking that, maybe, instead of all that fuss, you'd just highlight the sketch and do 'Edit>Fill'. If it's a sketch, it should work.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Edit>Fill wouldn't cut it for this. There were two splinar-shaped curves connecting the vertices of the hypotenuses at both the top and bottom of the two different, existing Sketch features. Picture two triangular-shaped Sketch features spaced apart from each other, created by another user, with splinar-shaped curves(also Sketch features) connecting the Sketches at the top and bottom of their hypotenuses. Like you said, without seeing the model or looking over my shoulder, it's pretty tough to try and determine what's happening with this situation. I agree with you on that one.

Now, to address your other most recent response to my post. What you described that you do is EXACTLY what I have used successfully in other versions of Wildfire(WF1 various builds and WF2 other builds). The problem is that it simply was not behaving like you described it SHOULD be working in this particular build of WF2(M140 I believe it is). Not at the office at the moment, so I can't say 100% for sure. Anyhow, not just with WF, but with other versions of Pro/E over the years I've seen stranger things happen depending on the graphics card/video drivers that were installed, etc., etc. Again, pre-highlighting and the ability to right-click 'Pick From List' was only available for the first curve. It was really bizarre. My hope was to be able to perform my selections just like you stated in your other post this evening. But WF2 simply was NOT allowing it to flow this way.

Ron M.

I have seen that happen and ~believe~ that shutting down Pro/E and re-starting would correct it*. I'd hypothisize that if pre-select highlighting isn't working correctly the whole selection "mechanism" may be out of kilter (? wonder if it might be a graphics card / driver issue in part).

• I've also occasionally seen goofy behavior that wouldn't respond to anything less than a re-boot of the computer. I feel rather certain that graphics system re-initialization is at the root of those issues (I'm using an old Gloria III).

Are you also losing the status bar message (lower left corner of screen)? It should give you an indication of the entity / feature in focus.

That could be, too. May be a build specific issue.

Do us a favor and let us know.