Use marquee selection for Trace, Contour, etc.

[chjade84]

I've got a project where I need to engrave outlines (.svg import) and there's far too many separate entities for me to select them all.  It seems very odd that there would be no way to either select a whole sketch for the tracing operation or marquee around the contours you wish to have traced, especially since this functionality is part of every CAD operation already.

I've turned to Inkscape and a plugin written by one guy to turn vectors into gcode; which is hardly ideal.

[Anonymous]

Not exactly helpful, but I often end up selecting multiple entities for a trace operation when doing "geometry text" engraving. I engrave solely using a ball-nose end mill, so can't use the engrave tool path. Using straight text trace works fine, even when selecting multiple lines I think you can click the drop-down menu, and go back to model, and select the sketch as geometry? When using geometry text though it selects the text fine, but when the tool path is generated, the tool path etches the text as a straight line. I guess what i'm getting at as a solution is does going back to the model, and selecting the sketch work for you? I'd find it difficult to see how marqueeing geometry could work successfully for anything but trace, contouring would be a mess I think (I imagine it selecting contours at multiple z levels you don't want, when trying to marquee the geometry at a single z level). The only situation I could see this idea working successfully is in as you were suggesting, selecting sketch geometry. Many thanks, Matthew.

[chjade84]

Yes, Trace is far and away the most in need of this feature but I could see other uses as well.  I don't think selecting the sketch works either, at least nothing I've tried.  What I'm getting at is, imagine a customer wants their logo engraved and you get the .svg and it's got 1,000 line segments; you have to manually select each one or else look to another program.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who has run into this.

[Anonymous]

This seems like an issue for a sketch tool really? Something like fit to curve would be useful where line segments are excessively short, although being able to select an entire sketch would be a useful feature, but i'm nearly sure i've been able to do that at some point in the past? I'll check tomorrow properly.

[Steinwerks]

Marquees are a pain though. I'd rather see Sketch Selection as it works in HSMWorks currently: select the sketch from the tree and it auto-selects and chains all geometry.

[Anonymous]

Selecting an entire sketch for a trace op should work in hsm, I tried it this morning with a few stray lines on a sketch. The auto chaining on the other hand I can't comment on, it might see each segment as an individual element.

[Steinwerks]

Yes, I'm saying that I'd prefer the behavior in Fusion 360 that already exists in HSMWorks (not that that couldn't use improvement as well). Marquee selection is akin to performing surgery with a machete in some cases.

[chjade84]

Depends on the operation; that's why it's nice to have options.  Marquee, select the sketch, "right-click -> select all contours"... ANY way to bulk select line segments is fine by me.

[al.whatmough]

Batch processing ideas that are 10+ months old with less than 5 votes. This is in no way to suggest the idea isn't a good one. However, the lack of votes tends to mean that the community feels other ideas should be given a higher priority. Feel free to tag me if you feel an idea wasn't given enough of a chance. We are more than happy to have a conversation on any of these ideas.