Cannot window-select multiple edges?

[Anonymous]

I've never been able to select edges using the window-select tool.  I've tried checking only 'Body Edges' and 'Select Through' in the selection menu, but it still does not work.  I can select one edge by clicking on it, but using the window-select tool will not select it.

 I have a model where I need to select about 50 edges, and clicking each one is very tedious, especially when you mis-click and everything is de-selected so you have to start all over again.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Juan

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Thanks for posting.  What do you want to do with those edges?  Are you going to fillet them?  If so, start the fillet command first, then you can window select edges.  Here's a screencast:  

Now, you are probably wondering why we did this.  It's all for performance.  If you have a large model, say 1000 faces, then there are probably about 2000 edges and another 2000 vertices.  So, if you do a window select of the whole model, there will be 5000 entities to select (not counting work geometry, sketches, etc).  That was pretty slow.  So, we analyzed the user workflows, and found that there are not too many workflows where you need to window select edges and vertices.  For edges, it's really only Fillet, Chamfer and maybe a couple of others.  So, we disabled edge and vertex selection in the default select command (when no other command is active).  This dramatically improved the speed of window select in the select command.  Then, we re-enabled it in the handful of commands where it is really useful.  I admit that it's not an obvious solution, but it does work, and in our opinion is a good trade-off between performance and functionality.

If you have another workflow where pre-selecting a lot of edges is critical, please let us know.

Jeff Strater (Fusion development)

[Anonymous]

I see.  It never occured to me to try selecting the edges after opening the fillet command, instead of before.  I think this could be confusing for other people too.  Thanks for the quick reply.

[Anonymous]

That was exactly the answer I was looking for too. Is there a way to just select edges that are connected to a face or a plane? I have some text cut into a model that I want to fillet on just the bottom and top planes, not the vertical edges.

[atomicsupersonic]

So I spent an afternoon going through and hand selecting every edge on a third of a model of a hexagonal grill. THANK YOU, you just saved me an entire night of selecting the rest. (oh and then deselecting without warning, repeat until screaming). It was with great satisfaction I went back in my timeline and undid hours of work, to re-do in seconds.