Accurate placement of section planes?

sfto1

I searched thru the site for any info on accurately placing section planes, as opposed to eyeballing them, and I cannot find anything.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

TIG

Select the Section-Plane.
Choose the Move Tool.
Hover over 'an inference-point' in the model, it needs to be an Intersection, Midpoint, Vertex etc that you can get an inference from, and that is on a 'line' that is perpendicular to the Plane itself, along which you will eventually snap the Plane [axial inferencing is easiest for this].
Wait a second for an inference to kick-in.
Move the cursor towards the Section-Plane, when the feint dotted rubber-banding shows [say 'red'], holding Shift to constrain that rubber-banding axially from the inference-point.
When you get up to the Section-Plane the dotted rubber-banding will show heavier [again say 'red'] and a dot will appear on the Plane itself, the cursor's tool-tip will say 'Constrained on Line Intersect Plane'.
Left-click on the Section-Plane.
Your Move anchor is now directly on the Plane.
Now Move the Plane to the point you previously inferred... OR for that matter to any other snap-able point in the model on that 'line'... and the Section-Plane should simply Move and snap to that new location, exactly...

Jean Lemire

Hi sfto1, hi folks.

OOOOPS, by the time it took me to write this, TIG beat me.

Anyway, here it is:

Select the Section Plane. It becomes highlited

Select the Move tool.

Place the cursor on the highlited perimeter of the section plane untill you see a pop-up message stating On section.

Slide it untill you get a snap with any usefull geoemetry (endpoint, midpoint, edge).

After experimenting I found that endpoints on arcs and circles and polygons and also guide point don't provide snapps to place a Section Plane.

However, if you press and hold the SHIFT key, you will then get snaps from just about anything except faces, centers, guide points and guide lines.

Just ideas.

sfto1

TIG and Jean,

I tried both suggestions and the one that TIG explained above has been giving me the best results. It takes a bit of patience at first, then gets easier.

Thanks so much for your help here specifically, and more generally as I learn much from your responses to other posts.

ArCAD-UK

A couple of other options:

Draw a temporary face where you want the cut, select create section plane and click on the face. Once you have the cut plane established you can delete the temporary face.
Create a section plane using a known position e.g. a floor slab or wall and then use Move tool to position it by entering the required distance in the VCB/measurement box.

sfto1

Thanks ArCad-UK,

Tip #2 is quite handy, and simple.

Wo3Dan

@sfto1 said:

I searched thru the site for any info on accurately placing section planes, as opposed to eyeballing them, and I cannot find anything.

Does anyone know if this is possible?
Another method, general approach, to see where you are going with the section plane.... as a group:
You can draw on a section plane, so:

create a section plane and make it inactive (double click on it)
draw two intersecting finit construction lines on the section plane (or one edge)
select both construction lines (or the edge) and the section plane > make group.
this group has a convenient grip, the intersection (or two endpoints) and can be placed, rotated etc. to fit in the geometry at the correct location/orientation. Best to do so in X-Ray.
Right click the group > Explode > double click the section plane to make it active.