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Chapter 9: Grouping, Linking, and Parenting Objects

Displaying Links and Hierarchies

The Display panel includes a rollout that lets you display all the links in the viewports.
After links have been established, you can see linked objects listed as a hierarchy in several places. The
Select Objects dialog box, opened with the Select by Name button (or with the H key), can display objects
in this manner, as well as the Schematic and Track Views.

Displaying links in the viewport
You can choose to see the links between the selected objects in the viewports by selecting the Display Links
option in the Link Display rollout of the Display panel. The Display Links option shows links as lines that
run between the pivot points of the objects with a diamond-shaped marker at the end of each line; these
lines and markers are the same color as the object.

Note
The Display Links option can be enabled or disabled for each object in the scene. To display the links for all
objects, use the Edit ➪ Select All (Ctrl+A) command and then enable the Display Links option. n
The Link Display rollout also offers the Link Replaces Object option, which removes the objects and dis-
plays only the link structure. This feature removes the complexity of the objects from the viewports and lets
you work with the links directly. Although the objects disappear, you can still transform the objects using
the link markers.

Viewing hierarchies
The Select From Scene dialog box (also called the Scene Explorer) and the Schematic and Track Views can dis-
play the hierarchy of objects in a scene as an ordered list, with child objects indented under parent objects.
Clicking the Select by Name button (H) on the main toolbar opens the Scene Explorer dialog box; select the
Display ➪ Display Children menu to see all the children under the selected object. Figure 9.3 shows the
Select From Scene dialog box with the Display Children menu enabled.
The Schematic View (opened with the Graph Editors ➪ New Schematic View menu command) presents a
graph in which objects are represented by rectangle nodes with their hierarchical links drawn as lines run-
ning between them.

Cross-Ref
You can learn more about the Scene Explorer in Chapter 6, “Selecting Objects and Setting Object Properties.” n

FIGURE 9.3
The Select From Scene dialog box indents all child objects under their parent.

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