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FEATURE REQ: "Landmark Selection"


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That suggestion doesn’t sound half bad. Coincidentally, I’ve kind of been wanting a feature like this, and mainly just some kind of overhaul/new features to the selection tools in PDN.

 

Personally, I can see myself using this feature in many scenarios, so I’m all for this idea.

   

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Neither @Rice Balls nor @BlastOfBN have explained clearly what benefits the proposed corner click selection tool would offer over the current Rectangle Select tool.

What is the use case for this tool?

Would the benefits of this new tool be sufficient to justify:
- The development effort
- The addition of another tool icon

- The addition of another press of 'S' shortcut key to select, what would then be, the 5th selection tool?

 

And how is Left Click / Move the mouse pointer / Left Click, as proposed for this tool, significantly different to Left Press / Drag the mouse pointer / Left Release as used by the current Rectangle Select tool?

 

 

Edited by Tactilis
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@Tactilis Exactly. I thought this was a good idea, but never really thought much of the benefits from the suggestion.

 

I also kind of want the Ellipse select to be reworked into a selection tool based on any shape the user has (both built-in shapes that came with PDN, and shapes that came from plugins (if possible?), as I think it would just make more sense if we were able to have multiple shapes in the selection tool.

 

For now, I’ll call my suggestion “Shape Select”. Chances are I will end up making a thread about this.

Edited by BlastOfBN

   

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@Tactilis Let's use the chessboard as an example.
In order to select the board from the white background I'd have to zoom in to get the exact pixel, click, and slowly drag my mouse while zoomed in, depending on the image size this can take quite a while. I could also zoom out, but when I try to do this I will often accidently hit the right mouse button while using the scroll wheel messing everything up, as having my fingers in that position on the mouse is awkward. 
I'm aware this tool would be fairly niche. I originally wanted to make a custom plugin for myself, but once I realised that wasn't possible to do for a tool I thought posting here would be the only other option.

Also the idea of not having to hold down left mouse the entire time is appealing to me.
Also also, when I was working on a project I wanted to get the size of a rectangular part of an image, so what I would do was to zoom into one corner, make a tiny rectangle select, zoom into the opposite corner and make another while holding CTRL. Then I would CTRL+Shift+X and immediately CTRL+R to get the size. This is where I got the idea from initially.

Edited by Rice Balls
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23 minutes ago, Rice Balls said:

Let's use the chessboard as an example.
In order to select the board from the white background I'd have to zoom in to get the exact pixel, click, and slowly drag my mouse while zoomed in, depending on the image size this can take quite a while.


Agreed. Dragging over a large image while zoomed in is not optimal.

 

Quote

I could also zoom out, but when I try to do this I will often accidentally hit the right mouse button while using the scroll wheel messing everything up. 
 

Also the idea of not having to hold down left mouse the entire time is appealing to me.


Here are two approaches you can try. I use them, so I know they are viable.

1. Zooming in and out while drag selecting

If you are a right handed mouse user:

  • Hold down the right mouse button using your middle finger for the drag and use CTRL(left hand)+scroll wheel(index finger) for zooming.


If you are left handed mouse user:

  • Hold down the left mouse button using your middle finger for the drag and use CTRL(right hand)+scroll wheel(index finger) for zooming.


Technique:

  • Press S to select the Rectangle Selection tool.
  • Zoom in to the top left of your chessboard, click the exactly on the corner and start the drag.
  • While dragging, zoom out and move the mouse pointer near to the bottom right of your chessboard.
  • Maintain the drag and zoom in so you can see the corner, position the mouse exactly and release the drag.

Practice it a few times. It becomes second nature.
 

 

2. Using Move Selection after an initial approximate selection

Technique:

  • Start zoomed out so that you can see the whole chessboard.
  • Press S to select the Rectangle Selection tool.
  • Drag to create an approximate selection that covers the board.
  • Press MM to select the Move Selection tool.
  • CTRL+scroll wheel to zoom in to the top left corner of the board and reposition the selection nub exactly.
  • CTRL+scroll wheel to zoom out, then zoom in to the bottom right corner of the board and reposition the selection nub exactly.


I often use a combination of the two approaches:

  • Zooming in and out while drag selecting to place the top left corner and create the approximate selection.
  • Then use Move Selection to refine the position of the bottom right corner.


It takes much longer to read the above words than to actually carry out the action.

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5 hours ago, Rice Balls said:

Let's use the chessboard as an example.
In order to select the board from the white background I'd have to zoom...

 

Nope. Try this.....

  1. Activate the Magic Wand tool :MagicWandTool:
  2. Click on the white background
  3. Invert the selection with Ctrl + I

 

Your example is also a great case for putting your elements on different layers. If the chessboard was on its own layer you could move the entire layer without needing to select anything ;)

 

PS Nice board! (but its misaligned)

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5 hours ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

Nope. Try this.....

  1. Activate the Magic Wand tool :MagicWandTool:
  2. Click on the white background
  3. Invert the selection with Ctrl + I


Agreed. That's absolutely the best way to do it with the example image given because it has a distinct boarder.

In the general case though of precisely selecting a rectangular area on an arbitrary image, the OP will need to use either (or a combination) of the approaches I outlined.

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