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Cutting Plane Properties

You can set cutting plane and cutting line properties in the Properties pane.

This page discusses:

Cutting Plane Properties

You can set cutting plane properties in the Properties pane.

Category Property / Description
N/A
Name

Specifies the actor name. This name appears in the Collaboration or Assembly tree and is the default tooltip text.

Tooltip

Specifies the tooltip text that appears when you hover over the actor. The default is the actor name, but you can select a different property or meta-property, or type a text string. To type text, which itself can contain properties, select String and use the Tooltip string property.

Note: By default, labels attached to an actor display the actor's tooltip text. To change this behavior, modify the label's Text property.
Tooltip string

(Available when Tooltip is String.) Specifies the tooltip text. Type your text, optionally with property keywords. For geometry actors, click to display the Text pane, where you can type multiple lines of text and more easily embed properties.

See Text pane for details on property keywords and the Text pane.

Cut

Enables the cutting plane. Toggling this option is useful when using cutting planes in animations.

Opacity

Specifies the cutting plane opacity, between 0 (transparent) and 255 (opaque). When the opacity is less than 8, only a ruler can move the actor. To select the cutting plane, use the Collaboration pane.

Opacity = 0Opacity = 255
Color

Specifies the cutting plane color.

GreenYellow
Axis

Specifies the cutting plane axis: X, Y, Z, X-, Y-, Z-, or User.

X-axisY-axis
Z-axisUser-defined
Depth

Specifies the depth of the cutting plane. You can also change depth by dragging cutting planes in the viewport.

Offset

Specifies the depth value.

Auto flip

Flips (inverses the cutting plane normal) automatically as you rotate the model.

Front/Back space opacity

Specifies the opacity (transparent = 0, opaque = 255) of the portion of the model in front of the cutting plane and the portion behind the cutting plane.

Front space opacity = 30 Back space opacity = 255

Note: These properties are available for a cutting plane when at most one cutting plane is visible. When 2 or more cutting planes are visible, select the Cutting planes parent node in the Collaboration pane and set Front space opacity and Back space opacity as needed.

Cutting line
Show

Displays the cutting line.

DisabledEnabled Color=Red
Thickness
Specifies the width, in millimeters, of the cutting line and hatch lines.
Note: In vector output, the width of cutting lines due to capping is computed by: Outline > Width (actor property) x Silhouette width (Technical Illustration - Lines) x Global line width(Technical Illustration - Lines). Cutting-line Thickness is ignored.
Color
Specifies the color of the cutting line and hatch lines.
Note: You cannot override hatch-line color from the Technical Illustration workshop. To create vector output with black hatch lines, set Color to black.
Cut invisible actors
(Available when Show is enabled.) Displays the cutting line where the cutting plane intersects actors with Opacity = 0. To disable the cutting line for invisible actors, clear this property.
Capping
Show

Creates surfaces where the cutting plane intersects solid model geometry.

DisabledEnabled
Keep actor color

Caps surfaces using actor colors instead of the same color for all actors (as specified by Color).

Notes:
  • This property requires an OpenGL extension. Ensure the HardwareSupport.Advanced setting (Application Preferences - Advanced Settings) is enabled. If this property is unavailable, your video card does not support this extension.
  • Hatch and Keep actor color are not compatible. It is recommended that you select Lighted capping with Keep actor color , especially for merged cutting planes.




Disabled Color=RedEnabled

Lighted capping
(Available when Keep actor color is selected.) Specifies that capping is affected by scene lighting.
Color
(Available when Keep actor color is cleared.) Specifies the capping color.
Note: You cannot override capping color from the Technical Illustration workshop. To create vector output without capping color, set Color to white.
Hatching (Available when Capping is enabled)
Angle
Specifies the rotation angle of hatch lines.
Hatch
(Available when Hatch by actor is cleared.) Specifies the spacing between hatch lines. To turn off hatching, specify 0.
Notes:
  • When Hatch by actor is selected, set hatch spacing for each actor using the actor's Hatch property.
  • When Hatch by actor is cleared, set hatch line width and color using the Cutting line properties Thickness and Color.
  • Hatch lines in vector output do not necessarily match what is displayed in the viewport. Vectorization creates hatch lines in 2D space whereas the viewport shows 3D space.
Hatch by actor

Enables different hatch spacing and angles for each geometry actor. After selecting this property, use Initialize spacing and Initialize angles to generate per-actor hatching and then optionally modify actor-specific Hatching properties. To have uniform hatching across the entire cutting plane, clear this property.

Notes:
  • This property requires an OpenGL extension. Ensure the HardwareSupport.Advanced setting (Application Preferences - Advanced Settings) is enabled. If this property is unavailable, your video card does not support this extension.
  • Hatching for each actor is computed separately, which can affect performance.
  • Each actor has one set of hatching properties that apply to all cutting planes (with Hatch by actor selected) that intersect it.




DisabledEnabled

Initialize spacing
(Available when Hatch by actor is selected.) Sets random per-actor hatch spacing. Click Proceed to initialize hatch spacing and then change spacing as needed using the Hatch property for each actor.
Initialize angles
(Available when Hatch by actor is selected.) Sets random per-actor hatch angles. Drag the slider to initialize hatch angles and then change angles as needed using the Angle property for each actor.
Notes:
  • Actors of the same size are assigned the same angle.
  • Each slider position assigns different random hatch angles, but the assignments are always the same for a given position.
  • Both the cutting plane and actor Angle properties affect hatch angles.

Cutting Line Properties

These properties apply to cutting line actors created using Author > Cutting Planes > Cutting Line > Create Cutting Line Actor .

Category Property / Description
N/A
Name

Specifies the actor name. This name appears in the Collaboration or Assembly tree and is the default tooltip text.

Tooltip

Specifies the tooltip text that appears when you hover over the actor. The default is the actor name, but you can select a different property or meta-property, or type a text string. To type text, which itself can contain properties, select String and use the Tooltip string property.

Note: By default, labels attached to an actor display the actor's tooltip text. To change this behavior, modify the label's Text property.
Tooltip string

(Available when Tooltip is String.) Specifies the tooltip text. Type your text, optionally with property keywords. For geometry actors, click to display the Text pane, where you can type multiple lines of text and more easily embed properties.

See Text pane for details on property keywords and the Text pane.

Color

Specifies the actor color.

Opacity

Specifies the opacity, from 0 (transparent) to 255 (solid).

Stay on top

Makes the collaborative actor visible even when a geometry actor covers it.

Disabled Enabled
Width

Specifies the width, in millimeters, for the cutting line actor.

Geometry
Type

Specifies that Curve is the geometry type for cutting lines. Composer uses geometry types to determine certain actor behaviors.

ScaleX
Resizes the cutting line along the x-axis.
ScaleY
Resizes the cutting line along the y-axis.
ScaleZ
Resizes the cutting line along the z-axis.


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