In a given drawing, you could have any number of different owners for the geometry, text, symbols, hatching, and sketches that you have created. All views, sheets, frames, and sketches can own drawing elements, but the relationships between the owners and the elements can be difficult to see on the sheet. Creo Elements/Direct Annotation provides a Hilite Owner tool that can be used to clarify graphically the status of owners and elements.
There are three distinct ways of using the Hilite Owner tool: to highlight the active owner, to highlight all the elements belonging to a specified owner, and to determine the owner of a specified element.
Highlight the active owner
When Act Owner is selected in the Show dialog box, the active sheet displays as dimmed all drawing elements except those that belong to the active owner. The elements displayed with normal colors belong to the owner named in the Hilite Owner box at the bottom of the screen. When this mode is switched off, this state is indicated in the Hilite Owner box with the words not active.
This mode is useful while positioning a new element on the sheet; the proximity of the element to its owner is then clearly visible. When no owner-carrying operation is underway, the active owner is taken to be the active sheet.
While this Act Owner mode is active, the Owner Check message ("Clicked point is not within the specified owner.") is suppressed. The warning resumes when Act Owner is switched off again.
Note that all drawing elements remain selectable (where relevant) in this mode; the dimming of elements is purely graphical. The active owner mode continues until you clear the Act Owner check box in the Show dialog box.
Highlight elements and determining owners
When you open the Hilite Owner tool at the bottom of the screen, a menu appears showing the four owning entities. The Act Sheet selected, and all elements owned by the active sheet are highlighted on the sheet.
To open the Hilite Owner tool: Double click in the highlight owner field (labeled not active at start-up), or right-click and select Hilite Owner from the context menu. Repeat this process to close the tool.
You can now do one of the following:
• Specify a different owner in the Hilite Owner box.
Creo Elements/Direct Annotation highlights the elements on the active sheet that belong to this owner. (You can specify owners in the same way as in the identical-looking Owner menu; see
The owner of drawing elements.)
• Click any element on the sheet.
Creo Elements/Direct Annotation displays the name of the owner of this element in the Hilite Owner box, and also highlights all elements on the active sheet belonging to this owner. Additionally, the type of element clicked (such as text, geometry, or hatching) is displayed in the Hilite Owner box at the bottom of the screen. For view geometry, the Creo Elements/Direct Modeling part that owns the element is also named.
For example, if you click view geometry in a view named Front of the part /p1, you see the following:
• The view and everything owned by it is highlighted in the viewport.
• The Hilite Owner box activates the View box and displays the name Front.
• The field at the bottom of the screen displays the message Geo in p1.
You can continue specifying owners in the menu and clicking elements on the sheet as required. To end this highlighting mode, click or Cancel in the Hilite Owner dialog box.
The fit mode
To help you view the highlighted elements on the sheet, Creo Elements/Direct Annotation provides two zooming buttons. Click Fit Owner in the Hilite Owner dialog box to redraw the viewport so that it fits exactly all elements belonging to the current owner. To effect a fit over all the contents of the viewport, click Fit Global. These two buttons effectively toggle the viewport contents, and can be useful for complex drawings.
When you end the Hilight Owner session, the viewport retains the current fit mode.
or Cancel in the Hilite Owner dialog box.