AutoCAD 2019 - Saving “Hide” / “Isolate” Status

By Martin Phelps 

After using the “Hide” / “Isolate” command to reduce the complexity and display of selected objects in the drawing; by default, once the drawing is closed all object “Hide” / “Isolation” is lost. When the drawing is re-opened all objects return to the displayed state.

It is however, possible to retain the object “Hide” / “Isolate” selection set between drawing sessions. This can be accomplished by changing the “OBJECTISOLATIONMODE” system variable, since this is a system variable it can be typed in at the command line.

When “OBJECTISOLATONMODE” is set to a value of “0” object “Hide” / “Isolate” selection will not be carried between drawing editing sessions. If the value is set to “1” object “Hide” / “Isolate” will remain next time the drawing is opened.

This may cause problems if a colleague opens the drawing file and is unaware that objects exist but are not visible.

To aid recognition of whether “Hide” / “Isolate” is set between drawing sessions, the “Hide” / “Isolate” icon in the “Status Bar” changes to indicate if object isolation is active.

If the circle in the “Hide” / “Isolate” icon is “Grey” as shown in Figure 1 there is no current “Hide” / “Isolate” in the drawing.

Figure 1.

It’s not that visible, but if the circle in the icon is “Blue” as shown in Figure 2, some of the objects in the drawing are not displayed using the “Hide” / “Isolate” command.

Figure 2.

To reset the drawing display, right click on the icon and select “End Object Isolation”. All objects that have been hidden are now visible.