Unselectable xref

[johnmeyers]

I am looking for a way to make it so that I cannot select an xref.  I want it to sit neatly in the background and leave me alone when I'm trying to select things in the current drawing. 

I am trying to design roadways on a steep hillside and the contours are very close together such that whe I zoom out to the view the whole project, there is no space on the screen where there aren't several contours within my pickbox.  I need the contours on so that I can layout around the topography, but in order to select the centerline of my road without clicking on the contours, I have to zoom in really tight and then select and zoom way out again to manipulate the other lines.  It would really speed things up if the xref contours could not be selected at all. 

Suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

[Joe-Bouza]

Have you tried turning on selection cycling on the status bar near the linewiegt and dyno input toggles? If you dont know its on it can be a nusance but it sounds like the tool for your situation

[RPyburn]

I simply would freeze the xref layer. Typical for basemap insertion and keeping surveys clean.

[brandyrodriguez · Accepted solution]

Try placing your references on a seperate layer and then lock the layer. You will be able to window / select objects and the xref will remain unselected.

[RPyburn · Accepted solution]

Yes, my error - Lock the layer, not freeze.

Of course that would have been instantly obvious!

RP

[troma]

Locking the layer will not stop you from snapping to it.
I don't know of any way to display a layer but prevent snapping to it. It would be very useful in some situations.

[Joe-Bouza]

Selection Cycling works for me

[troma]

It's not about selection, it's about OSNAPs. Or does selection cycling somehow control the OSNAPs too?

[Civil_Engineer_In_Irvine]

I am working in a drawing that has an xref with transparent hatches placed over the top all kinds of different entities in the drawing. I would like to have those xrefed hatches visible but then select the entities underneath them by clicking on the entities.

Placing the xref on the defpoints layer and turning off layer "0" works alright until a regen command is inititiated or you want to snap onto anything in the xref...... rendering the this as a weak solution.

How is it there is no a way to make things unselectable?

This is the one thing microstation got right!

How bout a way to make an entire layer unselectable but still snappable?

[Neilw_05]

There is no way to prevent autocad from snapping to anything. It's becomes a royal pain when working with 3D objects in a mixed 2D/3D environment. The only solution is Microstation.

A workaround you might try is to create a raster or PDF of your reference and attach it as a background. Then you will have a visual reference that won't interfere with your drafting.

[david.zavislan]

If this is an OSNAP issue, you can use the Tab key to cycle though all valid object snap solutions within your pick box.  Watch the coordinate values on the status bar. Pick when the object you want to snap to is highlighted, and if you are interested in the 2D objects, the coordinate Z value will be 0.

[maflegle]

This may be way too late for the original question, but I think I found the solution: 

Here's a link: http://www.cad-notes.com/using-dwf-and-pdf-as-underlay/

Basically, when the xref is selected, a contextual menu is displayed in the ribbon with the option to "Enable Snap" - simply toggle this off and you can no longer snap to the xref (in my case, a PDF).

Hope this helps - it certainly has made me a very happy cad monkey this morning.

[Neilw_05]

Doesn't that only apply to underlays? What about XREF's?

[johnmeyers]

That is exactly what I was looking for...if only that worked on .dwg xrefs too.  Thank you for the info.  That will be helpful too.

[maflegle]

I just checked and it appears to only be PDFs (i.e. when I clicked a DWG XREF, the ribbon option to "Enable Snap" did not appear). I have not tested it with other xref types.

[maflegle]

Agreed - I don't understand why Autodesk can't make that an option for all XREFs.