Does anyone know if it is possible to use a reference file simply as a background for the file that I am working on? I am currently building a parking lot from scratch, with the designer’s DGN file ref’d in. The ref file takes priority on anything I try to select. I just want to see it, i don’t want to snap to it, or even be able to select it at all. I believe this was an option with terramodel ref files. i know TBC ref files are relatively new, is this something that is currently possible?
thank you so much, that was driving me batty
I wish it was as simple as this, but in my experience unchecking “Selectable” is still very much bugged. It will still (sort of) select objects in the reference file (look at the properties pane to confirm this) but not fully select them (you won’t see them show up in the selection manager, e.g.); and yet somehow still inhibits the selection of objects in the current project whenever the reference file has objects within your selection window.
The very first implementation of reference files made them unselectable but running snaps would work on them, which was better than this. But we didn’t have much flexibility on what was displayed, so now I’m glad they added a view filter manager for reference files. And I’m glad for the ability to copy objects out of the reference file into the current file. I just wish they hadn’t broken the original selection behavior in the process. They need a special copy command just for retrieving objects in reference files instead of the hacky way the current arrangement piggy-backs on the normal copy command but without providing any visual feedback. Selection of objects in the reference file would then only become possible in the context of that command, otherwise reverting to unselectable but snappable.
Trimble has not fixed this as of now. its a pain yet a great tool!!!