Hellos,
OBD has introduced some pretty slick placement tools that allow the user to place objects at intersection points (grid lines). I think that this was originally developed by the China Priority OBD community, and later adopted by the 'core' OBD team. I suppose, the code would be adopted at platform level at some point.
Once you place your elements at intersections (especially, when you can do so in rapid-fire mode) , it follows that you will end up needing to select them for manipulation down the line... repeatedly.
To support this, it would be good to enhance the Place Fence by Element tool to:
1. Recognise linear elements like lines, line strings, splines, arcs etc. The user would select the linear element(s) and specify a buffer tolerance (3d or 2d in combination with the View's Display Depth). The Fence tool would return all elements that intersect or are enclosed within the buffer. This would then allow the user to isolate the elements or do whatever.
2. If the linear elements intersect, there will be option to restrict the collection of elements to those at the intersection(s)... subject to a buffer radius.
Mstn and its verticals' modeling tools benefit from a longstanding CAD background and is great at placing and manipulating individual elements precisely. But, as model complexity and size grow, we need more tools to help select and manipulate multiple elements quickly and precisely.
For example, a lot of structural frame models generated by Bentley verticals are not 'parametric' or linked to the structural grid. Making changes usually means using the Fence and display tools to isolate rows of columns / beams in order to move them. It would be quicker to use the grid lines to multi-select intelligently. The linear elements could even be left in the model on a designated level as Construction class elements for later use.
It will be a valuable means to provide some 'parametric' smarts to the elements without having to 'parametrisize' them which is a lot work and often slows things down; and also inevitably results in unwanted restrictions / behaviours that just get in the way, later.