How can I select areas inside incomplete shapes?

Question

Hi,
I'm often required to open PDF drawings outputted from AutoCAD and add colour to them. I do this by opening the PDF in Illustrator and drawing colour shapes in a layer underneath the CAD drawing. Illustrator is good at handling all of the lines from the PDF, but shapes are never interpreted as connected shapes, they are always broken shapes made up of lines. I find it's faster to re-draw them in a layer underneath than to try to join the broken shapes.
Ideally it would really speed up my workflow dramatically if Illustrator had an area select feature like Photoshop, for example if I could just click inside the broken shape with the magic wand tool and it would select the area.
Is it possible that this feature exists in Illustrator and I just haven't found it? Any recommendations would be appreciated.
G.

Answer 1

Do this:
1. Use the shape tools to draw a few ordinary closed paths, overlapping each other partially. .25 pt. stroke, no fill.
2. Select all the paths. Object>Path>Add Anchor points. Repeat 8 times or so.
3. Select>Object>DirectionHandles.
4. Edit>Cut.
5. Delete.
6. Edit>PasteInFront.
Now you have a what looks like enclosed areas, but is really just a bunch of tiny open paths. You've simulated the kind of thing you frequently get from CAD exports.
7. Select all.
Now record an Action that performs these steps:
1. Apply 1 pt black stroke with round endcaps and joins.
2. Object>Path>OutlineStroke.
3. Apply the Merge Pathfinder.
4. Object>CompoundPath>Release.
Stop recording.
Everything will look like it just acquired a black fill. But now you have a Group of ordinary closed paths with black fills and no strokes. The outermost closed path completely surrounds the others and is offset from them by 1 pt. (thus, serving as the line work). You can now click the fills of the other paths and apply whatever fill colors you want.
The Action can now be applied with one click.
I frequently use a slight elaboration of such an Action when importing DXFs of exploded assembly drawings. I Lasso or marquee-select around the disjointed paths that make up the drawing of an object, and then run the Action with one click. The result is white-filled closed paths, simplified to remove excess anchorPoints, with a heavier weight outline around the outer perimeter. (Helps clarify individual parts in an exploded drawing--not proper thick/thin treatment, but servicable. Also serves for color-coding by the thick outlines if you.)
The exact best steps to include in the Action depends partially on the nature of the kinds of drawings you typically import; but the principle is generally like that outlined above.
All of this (including workarounds with LivePaint) is, of course, ridiculous workaround for Illustrator's ridiculous lacking any kind of intelligent join command.
JET