General Modes of operation

Using pull-down menus

Upon loading GeoTools, the pull-down menu will be appended to the current existing AutoCAD menu and will be accessible at the extreme right hand side corner. Each of the GeoTools categories are available under this menu.

Using toolbar icons menus
If you wish to use dockable toolbar menus, many of the GeoTools functions can be used this way. The first time GeoTools menu is initialized, all the toolbars are automatically opened. You can open or close the toolbars at any time by using the AutoCAD TOOLBAR command and selecting the menu-group GEOT. 

Using command-line to key in the command name
Command-line names for each of the GeoTools commands are shown in the status bar at the bottom of your AutoCAD screen each time you highlight a GeoTools command in the pull-down menu or the toolbar icon. The command names are also shown throughout this manual preceding the command description.

Compatibility with Scripts
GeoTools is designed to function both with a dialog box interface (DBI) as well as command line interface (CLI) for automated processing through scripts. Most of the commands, which bring up a dialog box during interactive mode, come up with equivalent command line options when called through a script. To find out how each command will operate under a script or to run GeoTools in an entirely command-line driven interface, you can turn on the command line mode in GeoTools under GeoTools>>Settings command.

Results of command operations
GeoTools commands which operate on a set of selected objects produce desired results and these results are always placed in AutoCAD's active selection set. The active selection set can be accessed using the "previous" or "p" option during any Select objects: prompt. The last processed GeoTools selection is preserved in memory until it is overwritten by the next GeoTools command or if other AutoCAD commands process the active selection and modify/delete the objects contained in them. Until such time, this selection can be accessed by the GeoTools>>Selection>>Put last selection… command.

Object selection methods
Many of the GeoTools commands require a user selection of objects to be made. GeoTools provides for several methods in which this selection can be accomplished. Each time an object selection is required, GeoTools comes up with a generic dialog box labeled "Build Selection Set". 





The above figure shows the dialog box for an automatic processing of all objects in the drawing meeting selection filter criteria or a manual selection of objects can be filtered as per the criteria specified in the dialog box. An example of the selection elements is described below.

[Properties] section
Objects can be filtered on the basis of their types or layer names or block names or a combination of all the above where applicable. Depending on which of these are checked, the appropriate selection mode is applied. You can graphically indicate the object property to be used by picking one "sample" object by clicking on the Pick One button at the bottom of the Properties section. 

[Current Selection Values] section
Once you have selected which property to use, you can specify the values for these named objects in two ways - they can be manually typed into the edit boxes under this section labeled Objects, Layers and Blocks or can be selected from a list of available names in the current drawing document by choosing the appropriate buttons in the Names in Drawing section.

If you have to manually type in the names, make sure to separate two names with a comma. Wildcards can be used to type names.

[Names in drawing] section
This section has buttons for Objects, Layers and Blocks, which allow defined names in the current drawing document to be selected and dropped in the Current Selection Values section.

For example, selecting the Objects button brings up a list of all standard AutoCAD objects that can be used for the selection criteria.




Tip: To search for a custom AutoCAD object not listed in the menu, just type in the name of the object in the object edit area. A few custom objects defined by AutoCAD Land Development Desktop like AECC_POINT, AECC_CONTOUR and AECC_GRADE are already listed in the object selection dialog.

Search Options
    Model Space Only
    This option limits the search to model space objects only.
    Paper Space Only
    This option limits the search to paper space objects only.
    Both
    This option searches for both model space and paper space objects.

How to create selection
    Create new selection
    This option builds a new selection and makes it current
    Append to current selection
    This option appends the results of the current selection to any previously existing current selection, if any.
    Subtract from current selection
    This option subtract the result of the selection being processed from an existing current selection, if any.

Scan entire drawing
Choose this option to build the selection set by processing all the objects in the current drawing meeting the current selection criteria.

Scan selected objects
Choose this option to build the selection set by manually selecting objects from the drawing and applying the current selection criteria.

Apply
Exits the dialog box by placing the current selection in the active [previous] selection set. If another GeoTools command has invoked this dialog box, then that dialog box continues after this dialog box. If it is called independently through the GeoTools-->Selection-->Build Selection Set command, the resulting selection set will be placed as active [previous] selection and can be accessed by using the "p" option during any selection command displaying the "Select Objects" prompt. 

Logical restrictions
The Object type that may be legally allowed during the current selection is defined by the calling command. Such commands will display only the legally allowed object types in the Object Types selection. For example, the GeoTools-->Conversion-->Change 3D to 2D command only allows polylines and lines to be selected as valid object types.

Model Space and Paper Scale
GeoTools commands are tested and designed to work with model space objects only. Most of the GeoTools commands can work correctly with paper space objects also but this is untested and not supported by the developers. In the event a GeoTools function is not working as stated, it could be because of some paper space objects in the selection. Often, third party applications store their data as paper space objects. If this is suspected, check the appropriate boxes in the object selection box to ensure that your selection extracts objects only from model space.