Make PDF underlay unselectable

[VirtualPilot]

It bugs me that you select a few pieces of ducts to use in OBJECTVIEWER and the darn PDF underlay automatically gets selected too, making the ducts "ant" size, the PDF xref is in a unique LOCKED layer, so that does not work, funny is TIFF underlays do NOT get selected...

Is there a way to force objects to be unselectable?

[cnash]

I'm assuming this is in CAD?
In EST when it is locked you can't do anything with it and there are layer tools that will make it so it cannot be selectable (I have not tried this in CAD as PDF underlays aren't used quite as much as in EST.)

[linedrawer]

When I bring a PDF in I usually like to make a PDF layer, and treat it like an Xref. You can lock that layer. It might still be selectable, but at least it wont move around. Plus you can freeze the layer and hide the PDF. Sometimes this is quicker than loading and unloading it.

[VirtualPilot]

Yes, in CAD, it is very annoying if you have a PDF plan xref'd and want to preview a few pieces of ducts and the entire PDF also gets selected when using OBJECTVIEWER, yes, the PDF is in it's unique layer and LOCKED, it still gets automatically grabbed even though you are far away from it's edge limits... if there was a way to make it UNSELECTABLE, that would help a lot... TIF Xref'd does not have this behavior... it won't get selected...

[cadbyken]

Yes, in CAD, it is very annoying if you have a PDF plan xref'd and want to preview a few pieces of ducts and the entire PDF also gets selected when using OBJECTVIEWER, yes, the PDF is in it's unique layer and LOCKED, it still gets automatically grabbed even though you are far away from it's edge limits... if there was a way to make it UNSELECTABLE, that would help a lot... TIF Xref'd does not have this behavior... it won't get selected...

One of the tricks Andy shows us a while back was to select what you want to view via the MPROP icon (in the main toolbar, looks like 3 colored pieces of paper stacked on each other, three icon)) then orbit with previously selected items.  That command selects only Fabrication items.

Yes, the orbit does need to have the option to select only or not Fab items.

[cadmium]

2017 autocad is supposed to convert pdfs.
I have downloaded it, but haven't tried to convert a pdf yet.

[VirtualPilot]

I just saw that this morning, this is going to be awesome, specially for us where we have to do 90% of our jobs ontop of PDF files

http://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/features/connected/import-pdfs

[VirtualPilot]

Come to think, it would be cool if AutoCAD had that capability built-in, to be able to make objects or layers unselectable, another one that comes to mind is grid lines, or long walls from Revit, you grab a few pieces of ducts to OBJECTVEW them and they are ant size because you also grabbed a grid line... 

[cadmium]

point clouds too.  always seem to select them when you don't want to, but when you do, you cant.