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Hide and isolate objects in AutoCAD without using layers
Making drawings in a crowded part of the drawing is a very tedious task as cursor tend to snap to points which we don’t want. Although you can select a particular Object snap from the right contextual menu or you can manually turn off object snaps that are not required.
But the easier way will be cleaning up your drawing space to remove unnecessary clutter and work in a clean area. Hide and Isolate options are made specifically for these type of situations.
For example, if you have a floor plan with lots of blocks and annotations covering a certain part of drawing then you can hide some of those objects to clear the mess and work in that area. Later on, when you are done with the drawing you can bring back those hidden objects.
You can do it using layer visibility toggle as well but in that case, all objects on a particular layer are affected but with the Hide and Isolate option you can selectively hide interfering objects.
Isolating objects:
From drawing select components which you want to keep in drawing then right click to bring the contextual menu. From this menu select isolate then isolate objects.
All the objects from the drawing will disappear leaving only drawing objects which you have selected, now you have a clutter free drawing to work with. Don’t worry the remaining objects are not deleted they are only hidden from the view and you can always bring them back.
Hiding objects:
If you are interested in hiding only certain components from drawings then you can use hide option from the contextual menu. Select objects that you want to hide from drawing then right click to bring the contextual menu and select Isolate then Hide objects.
This will hide only the objects which you have selected leaving all the remaining objects active in drawing area.
Ending object isolation:
To bring all objects back in the view right click anywhere in drawing area and select Isolate from the contextual menu then select End Object Isolation. This will bring all hidden and isolated objects back in the drawing area.
You can also end object isolation by clicking Isolate Object icon on the status bar and selecting End Object Isolation from the menu that appears.
If you have questions related to this tip then let us know in the comments below.
I cannot see a layer which appears visible before opening the drawing on view,however when i open the drawing i can’t see the layer asnif it’s hidden or switched off although all layers are turned on and i ended isolate..
Please help
Can i end isolation and leave some hidden?
In other words, can i end isolation partially? Or step bt step?
Hello, thank you for this page,
im also a mechanical engineer and im having a issue with hidden componnents that does not come back. I can see the weld dots and if I change from 2d wireframe to a conceptual display all the components show but not in the 2d wiewframe, I have tried what you mentioned above and so many other information I find online but nothing. do you know how I can fix this?
Hi Jaiprakash,
Thank you for your tips, I want to know is there a way to isolate objects in only 1 view when using multiple views in model space? Like in revit?
Thank you
Jacob
There is an Block Object A, B, C all together converted as block as Function1. I have copied the function1 block into two location with in same file like location1 and location2. I want to modify the block object A in location1, but location2 block object should not reflect this change (location1 changes)
Thank You
Amazing
From “Isolating Objects”, you wrote: “From drawing select components………….” What do you mean by that?
Thank you.
Chris
I mean “select objects which you want to hide or isolate from the drawing area”.
Thank you sir!!!
I found that most of the tips you provides and explain step by step are extremely useful.Thank you very much.
Welcome Loi Diep :)