Keeping Sketch Objects Easy to Select / Managing Complexity

[pvercello]

Hi there,

Newbie workflow question here: I have a sketch with a handful of overlapping different parts that I need to do a bunch of extrusions and other operations on repeatedly, and I find it cumbersome to repeatedly select the areas that I need to do the extrusions on - selecting is made difficult by all the overlapping shapes and construction lines that I had to use, so I'm wondering how best to approach it.  

Here's a troublesome part of the sketch:

It's difficult to select, say, just the outer circle without other stuff getting caught up in it the selection:

The circle example here is simple, but the same situation comes up with more complex entities that I'd love to get a handle on.

So a few questions here:

1. Can you select part of a sketch and group it or otherwise make F360 remember it as a single "thing" so you don't have to repeatedly do a multi-part selection?  I've occasionally missed a little corner on these and messed up the extrusion - doing that repeatedly increases the risk for missing a spot.
2. I thought if all of these could be in separate sketches, then I could show / hide the different parts easily. Can I move some of these entities to another sketch, but keep the constraint relationships that are there, having constraints across sketches?
3. Is there a "Move shape to another sketch" operation?  Kind of like in photoshop extracting a selection to another layer.  That could make things easier.
4. I use a fair number of construction lines in here which aren't actually a part of the real geometry - I find it annoying that they slice the otherwise-individually-selectable entities (like the small circle in the middle of my example) into little pieces that I have to use multiple clicks to select.   Is there a way to tell F360 to ignore these construction lines?
5. Any other suggestions here or ways to approach it?  Suspecting I'm missing some key workflow tips.

Many thanks,

Cello

[PhilProcarioJr]

@pvercello

1) Not that I am aware.

2) Separate sketches is normally the way you would do it, but be careful because you have to project things to link them and some thing can not be fixed once broken. You can right-click and break the link if need though.

3) You can select parts of your sketch and copy them then paste them into a new sketch.

4) Right click on your construction lines and convert them to actual construction lines...this will help a lot with your selections.

[pvercello]

Ah great - I was missing the "construction" constraint - that makes it a lot easier.

Now to clarify separate sketches - if I copy an element to a separate sketch, does its constraint that ties it to an element in the first sketch come with it?

Many thanks!

Cello

[davebYYPCU]

In general terms that's a Yes, if you use Project commands, 

but may not be the case if you use the copy paste, 

with so so many design choices, you need to trial and error, the way to get it done for you.

Might help....

[chrisplyler]

No. If you want geometry in a sketch that is linked/referenced to some other sketch geometry or even model geometry, then start your new sketch and use one of the Project options to capture those outside items in the new sketch.