Smart Select - Drawing Tool

Modified on 2024/05/09 15:34 by Adam — Categorized as: Features

The Smart Select drawing tool in Surety and Surety Pro is very useful when you want to edit an existing border without wanting to take the time and trace around the border with the Draw Field tool. Using the Smart Select tool will allow you to automatically draw out an entire existing FSA field border, edit a previously drawn or previously saved(Surety Pro) border, create an editable boundary from a saved form (Surety Pro), or draw out a Parcel boundary(Parcel Data Add-on) .

See:

Click to play the Smart Select How-To Video below.

Smart Selecting existing borders (FSA Fields, Saved Forms, Parcel Boundary)
The Smart Select tool is found in the left hand panel after Drawing is selected. You can enable the Smart Select tool by clicking on the radio button next to Smart Select.

For this example, I want to select an existing yellow FSA border and alter it to fit my needs. With Smart Select chosen, all I need to do in order to select and trace that existing FSA border is to left click once inside of the boundary.

You will be able to tell right away that the border was drawn because a red border with a blue fill shows up just like when a boundary drawn using the Draw Field tool is closed.

Now you are able to modify the border by left clicking and dragging on the nodes(points) to move them, adding nodes with the right click, or delete nodes with by right clicking on an existing node.

Note that the Acres updates as you move the nodes(points) around the map.

See:Drawing Tools, Draw Field Tool

Smart Select is able to select from all polygon layers including:

FSA Fields,

Parcel boundaries,

saved Borders (Surety Pro),

and Form Layers(Surety Pro).

Using Snap (On/Off) effectively with the Smart Select tool. ¶

For my example I want to move the northern border of the selected parcel further south a little bit. I also want to move the southern border of the upper parcel to match the northern border of the lower parcel.

I will begin by manipulating the northern border of the already smart selected FSA border. I will just left click and drag each node south to the desired location.

Once I am done manipulating that border, I want to now move the southern border of the upper parcel south to match it. With Smart Select still enabled, left click inside the upper FSA boundary to trace it.

Now instead of just trying to match the other border as close as I can by just drawing the nodes down, I will first click to place a check mark inside the Snap(on/Off)

The Snap modifier allows me to drag a border and automatically "snap" or match it up to an existing border ensuring there are no overlapping acres.

Once you have the snap enabled, whenever you hover over an existing border or are close to it, a larger node appears. Now simply drag those existing points down to "snap" onto the other line or nodes.

Drag the node until it snaps to the other border.

Now you are able to generate any report or form.

You do not need to use the Select X's on top of these borders because once smart selected, they will already be selected.

However if you have smart selected or drawn multiple borders and only want certain borders to show up in the reports then you can use the select tool to select only the desired borders.

Delete a single drawn borders¶

If you would like to delete an individual border simply use Smart Select, click in the boundary to highlight it blue, and then press the Delete key on the keyboard. (Note: DO NOT use the Backspace key!)

Use the delete key to remove a single selected border

You can also delete one boundary at a time by Smart Selecting the boundary and clicking on the Delete Selected link within the Draw Field Panel

Otherwise you can delete all of the smart selected and drawn borders at once by clicking on Drawing and clicking on the trash can.

or clicking on Delete All in the right panel.

Smart Select Excluded acres¶

When an area has been excluded from a boundary using the Draw Field Tool, the Smart Select tool can be used to select the excluded area to show the excluded acres. (note: this will still add the excluded acres back to the Total Acres if a form is generated that has a Total Acres calculation.

After the Draw Field tool has been used to draw the exclusion, switch the drawing tool back to Smart Select.

Left click once in the excluded area to have that area filled in and selected.

Modify Saved Borders within Surety^® Pro¶

In Surety^® Pro you are also able to use the Smart Select in order to select saved borders edit them and then re-save them to update the borders. See: Edit saved boundaries in Surety® Pro

See Also:

Smart Select - Drawing Tool

Using Snap (On/Off) effectively with the Smart Select tool. ¶

Delete a single drawn borders¶

Smart Select Excluded acres¶

Modify Saved Borders within Surety® Pro¶

Modify Saved Borders within Surety^® Pro¶