Clone selected in drawings

The Clone selected command allows you to clone previously created annotation objects and drawing object representations among the assemblies or cast units with the same type and similar shape in GA drawings.

When editing GA drawings, it is often required to add annotations, dimensioning and styles for building objects as repetitive task. The new Clone selected feature clones existing annotation objects,drawing object representations and styles from selected source objects to selected target objects in GA drawings. With this feature, you can reduce manual repetition considerably.

You can clone annotation objects and drawing object representations inside one drawing view or among different drawing views.

Clone selected recognizes the following types of drawing content:

Associative and independent annotation objects: dimensions, marks, texts, symbols, text files, and DWG/DXF files
Sketch objects, such as circles, rectangles, and polygons
Object representations and styles: line colors, line types, hatches

Adjust cloning settings

Before you clone, you may want to define how and what to clone in Cloning settings. You can also clone using the default settings.

On the Drawing tab, click Clone selected > Cloning settings.

Define the cloning settings:


Merge	Override all annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target by cloning matching content from the cloning source. This is the default mode.
Keep all	Keep the existing annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target and only clone the missing ones from the cloning source.
Discard all	Discard all annotation objects and building object properties in the cloning target and clone all selected content from the cloning source.
Clone building object properties and styles	Clone drawing object properties such as line colors and types, hatching styles and other representation properties in the drawing object properties for parts, reinforcement, bolts and welds.
Place marks and associative notes according to protection settings	Automatically run the Arrange drawing objects near current location command for all associative annotation objects except for level marks, weld marks, dimensions and independent annotation objects. This option positions the annotation objects in the cloning target so that they do not overlap other objects. Objects located in a free location are not moved, and overlapping objects are moved as close to the current location as possible.

Click OK.

Clone selected annotations and object properties

Before you clone, first modify the source object so that it contains the desired dimensions and annotations, and adjust the source object properties.

When cloning dimensions, remember to set the dimension associativity rules before cloning to avoid the situation where it is unclear which object a dimension point is associated to. For more information, see Display and change dimension point associativity.

In an open GA drawing, click Clone selected on the Drawing tab.
Select the cloning source objects by clicking the objects or using area selection.

You can also select the objects before activating the Clone selected command.

You can also select the objects using Drawing content manager and selection filters.

You can deselect objects by holding down Ctrl and clicking the selected object.
Press the middle mouse button to complete the selection.
Select the cloning target objects by clicking the objects or using area selection.
Press Esc to stop the cloning.

Tip: You can also clone from the source that you selected last. To do this, click Clone from last selected source on the Drawing tab.

Below on the left a detailed footing and on the right a similar footing that will be the target of cloning:

Below, the detailed footing on the left has been used as source for the target on the right. The details have been cloned to the target.

Note:

Cloning of annotations to multiple assemblies or cast units produces best results only when annotations and dimensions are associated to single-assemblies or cast units in source selection.

When the source selection contains annotations and dimensions associated to multiple assemblies, Clone selected will produce accurate results only if corresponding groups of assemblies or cast units are selected in the target one by one, not all at once.

Limitations

Some drawing objects cannot be used as source objects, such as grid lines, section view symbols, drawing view names, neighbor parts and neighbor reinforcement. These objects types will not be highlighted during/after area or single selection. Messages on the status bar indicate if an object cannot be selected.
Clone selected cannot be used with pour units.
To achieve accurate cloning results all dimensions should be associated either to grid line intersection points or to intersections of building objects and grid lines.

Dimension point associated to intersection of two perpendicular grid lines:

Note that all dimension points that are located in arbitrary position along the grid lines in the source selection will be cloned to wrong coordinates in the target.

Dimension point associated to intersection of part side and grid line:
Clone selected cannot be used for cloning radial or curved dimensions.
Cloning of annotations to mirrored objects created with the Mirror command in the model does not produce accurate results.
Cloning modes do not affect cloning of independent annotation objects or sketch objects. Listed object types will be copied to target as many times as clone selected is applied to the target objects.
Dimensions will not be cloned if the viewing directions of the source and target drawing views do not match. In this case, a message is shown on the status bar.