Searching for entities

October 4, 2011 2011 search new_feature search_results

Digi3D 2011 incorporates a new dockable pane that will allow us to search entities by a certain criterion. The default installation of the program incorporates a number of search criteria such as All entities, All points, All texts, Texts by code and by content, ... Before ordering the pane to perform the search we have to select the destination of the search result, and we can select one of the following three options:

sir Search results 1
sir Search results 2
Active Order

If we select pane results of the search 1/2 it will show the result of the search in a new dockable pane that will show us in a table all the entities located with the searcher. It shows many details of the entities, such as number of points, area, perimeter, number of codes, first code, type of entity, ... We can sort by a particular field by clicking on that field or we can group by a field by dragging the field title to the grouping area above the window. If we double click on an entity, Digi3D 2011 will show the entity with a small animation, and if we have configured it, it will zoom centering the entity on screen or move the camera (without changing the zoom) to show the entity on screen. If a command is being executed that is requesting that one or more entities be selected, we can select several entities in the Search results 1/2 window and click with the right mouse button. A context menu will appear with the option Send selection to active command. If we select that option, the selected entities will be sent to the active command that will act accordingly. For example, we could execute the command CHNG_DIREC and change the direction of the lines with a certain code and whose perimeter is less than a certain value. The possibilities are endless! Finally, you can tell the search window to send its results to the Active command instead of either Search results pane. In that case, no pane is displayed, and all entities found are sent to the command that is active when you click Search. Note 1: That I forgot to record in the video: You can customize the number of columns that show the panes Search results in the menu Tools/Settings/search results pane Note 2: Anyone with a little understanding of .NET programming could add search criteria to the Search pane. Below you have a video that shows this new functionality. http://youtu.be/\_pC4OqvggLE