Use of Feature Highlighting

With Feature Highlighting ‘on’, dragging with the primary mouse button held down causes features such as p-points or p-lines to be highlighted when the pointer moves across them. Highlighted features can then be ‘snapped' to. Feature highlighting can be activated either from the F ‘hotkey’ or from Selection>Feature Highlighting on the main menu bar.

As the alignment with a feature invariably relates to the leg the Components are in, when feature highlighting is active the drag movement is constrained to lie along the leg the selected Component is currently in, not the whole pipe route. This prevents the inadvertent repositioning of Components into a different leg when trying to align with a feature.

When no feature is found initially, the handle moves using the default movement increments until a feature is identified. Selected Components cannot moved past either end of the pipe leg they are within.

Where a derived position is not within the bounds of the leg or cannot physically fit within a segment of a leg, the selected Components are positioned at the nearest extent of the leg closest to the derived position. Feedback is given to indicate that the positions of the items are not in alignment with the identified feature.

Where there is more than one position solution, the system has default behaviour to derive the initial position. However, it is possible to cycle through the possible positions and choose the desired one. The P hotkey is used for this.

Subsequent feature identification within the same drag uses the last solution type to derive the position, where possible. If there is no position solution to the feature selection, the system reverts to its default behaviour.