Elements in drawing displayed partially - have dots in corners

I have ACAD 2004 drawing. Drawing is 2D. Exported from ArchiCAD. Having problem with displaying all elements in drawing. Actually, some elements are not displayed (or just partially displayed) and have something like "black mask" or layer over them with white dots in corners. I would like to remove it so lines bellow can be displayed.

When I move cursor over that "black mask" I see lines from bellow on which I can click (select it) and bring it to front. BUT, I need to do it with every line in my drawing which means days of work....

I have tried with Quick Select > Hatch > Linetype > Wipeout contoure (to select it and move it away from drawing ) but noting is selected and cannot move it away.

Have you any idea about this ?

Can you post the drawing so we can take a look at it?

Can you post the drawing so we can take a look at it?

Here you have part of my drawings.

You have "it" on stairs....

How to select it on bigger drawing and move it from drawing or delete it?

06122011.dwg

Are you aware that if you pick on one of those dots then execute the MOVE command you can drag the "mask" off the objects it is hiding?

If it can be selected and moved then that means it could be selected and deleted as well. Best to do a "save as" of the drawing and work on that version rather than edit the original. That way if you delete something you really needed you can always retrieve it from the original.

I've seen this in one other drawing that was also originally created in ArchiCAD and exported to an AutoCAD DWG file format. It can be a bit perplexing when first encountered.

Interesting. So far every instance of one of these "masks" turns out to be a block that starts with the letter "E" followed by a number. Maybe you could use the QSelect command to select all of them and either delete them or put them on a separate layer that you could freeze.

Of course, when you click on this dot and select it you can isolate layer. After that select it again (in whole drawing) and move bunch of dots away. Perfect, if dots are in one layer and valuable materials (like lines) in some other layers. But, what if there is other things in same layer (non-consistent drawings) as usual when exporting from ArchiCAD and what if you have 10 floors with 10 times bigger drawings that this one I have in this post???

There should be a way to select by type of object ...from various layers .....Quick Select > ... but I cannot figure it out...

Don't kill the messenger OK? Yes, I did notice that the "dots" can be on the same layer as other important drawing elements.

You read what I said about the names of the blocks didn't you? What if you wrote a lisp routine that erased all blocks that started with the letter "E"? Would that work?

As a test I used QSELECT with an object type of BLOCK and I selected a layer that I knew some of these "E" blocks were on. It found 12 objects which I then erased. When I executed the PURGE command there were 12 blocks all starting with the letter "E" ready to have their block definitions purged. So your idea seems to work.

Have you tried using Filter?

I moved all blocks, and it found 82 in your posted drawing

Good idea eldon. Why don't you explain to the OP how it is done? I think he is at his wits end right about now.

I trust that I am not stealing your thunder, ReMark.

To use Filter, start the move command, and when the prompt comes up to select objects, type 'fi Note the apostrophe in front of the fi, that makes the command work transparently whilst in another command.

When the Object Selection Filter dialogue box comes up, scroll down to Block in Select Filter, then Add to List and Apply. Then type "all" to select everything, but because of the Filter, only blocks are selected. Then move everything 1500 units horizontally to one side. The drawing looks much better now.

Be my guest eldon. Always good to have another option presented.

Yes, that's the solution !!!

Tools > Quick Select > Object type:Block reference > Properties: Name > Operator: Wildcard Match > Value: *E*

and everything "with dots" is selected so it can be moved and then deleted.

Thank you very much.

Don't discount eldon's solution either.

On behalf of both eldon and myself, you're entirely welcomed. Glad you got your problem solved.

Tools > Quick Select >

Object type:Block reference >

Properties: Name >

Operator: Wildcard Match >

Value: *E*

PURGE

Thank you on your help.

I got them all with Qselect>Block Reference>Name>Wildcard match>* took a few seconds.

If you select an object then use properties, it will tell you the object type etc.

What are the point styles set to?

ddptype

Check there as well.

That would probably work for not displaying the points but they represent the corners of the masking entities which is really at the root of the problem. These entities hide portions of the needed geometry.

Perhaps, I have had users (at former job) call about blocks having dots in them before. Was a fix in some of those. :/