PickHelper does not pick elements outside active context

[fredo6]

If the current context is a group or component, I found out that PickHelper does not 'pick' entities outside the active context.

In contrast, InputPoint does seems to pick outside current context as well as Raytest.

Since it is easy to detect in which context you are, it should be possible to build an alternate method of picking for PickHelper when the current context is not the top model. But that's going to be cumbersome because both InputPoint and RayTest have limitations.

Note that the Sketchup behavior for the native Sketchup tools is to pick entities and inference about the entities outside the current context. The tooltip is even showing "outside Active".

Fredo

[cesaro36]

Hi Fredo
Did you find a way to "pick" entities outside the active context?

[thomthom]

Yes, this is a reflection of the behaviour of SketchUp's tools. Pickhelper is used for selection and you cannot select outside the active context. Inputpoint on the other hand do let you snap to things outside the active content. And raypick is just a generic utility.

What are you trying to do that require picking entities outside the active context?

[cesaro36]

Thanks for picking up the question ThomThom
I'm developing a measuring tool and part of the functionality lies on the capability of the tool to make a quick measurement no matter what context you are into.

Currently I'm getting the information via pickpoint but I'm having hard time trying to get rid of the interferencing and also confuses me a lot when the cursor is over a face but one or more edges are just behind that face because my draw method to highlight either the face or the edge goes crazy when underneath the cursor are to much geometry happening. I wanted to implement a method using pickhelper but the not picking outside active context thing stopped me.

The tool angleinspector from fredo marvelously does exactly what I want to achieve and I'm trying to mimic that functionality but without success.

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180%26amp;t=67058
Here you can see a gif describing my problem.

Saludos