Hi Michael,
this is a feature every designer needs. Cut planes, or a Section Analysis tool, is essential to understand what we are doing (expecially in a conceptual software like MoI), Make2D of sections and export them quickly.
I am looking forward to see this feature implemented in MoI4, and I can see it working like the CPlane tool, under the View tab.

It can be a new tool:


But I wouldn't mind if it was a supplementary option for the current CPlane tool, which in my opinion it might be even better:


Regards,
Max.

It could be interesting for a designer, we would have finally a software that give us the freedom to think of all aspects of an entire project!

Hi Max,

> Cut planes, or a Section Analysis tool, is essential to understand what we are doing
> (expecially in a conceptual software like MoI), Make2D of sections and export them quickly.

Could you describe a bit more about how Make2D would be incorporated into the cut plane tool? I thought that the cut plane tool that you've asked for before would be a display modifier that cut away chunks of the model inside the display... How would that then connect workflow-wise to exporting 2D drawings?

Is there another software package that currently does the type of cut plane handling that you have in mind so I can take a look and see how they've packaged it up?

- Michael

Hi - thanks for replying.
Yes, the clipped view will be used with the make2d command and it should Make2D the clipped model.
There is plenty of software which does that, a few comes to my mind:
- rhino with the clipping plane command (http://vimeo.com/m/43613999): When you run the Make2d on a clipped view it will output the clipped model and not the whole model.
- sketchup with the Section Plane tool: it's a real time clipping tool and when you export as dxf it will output the clipped view.
- Fusion 360: Same thing goes here with the Section Analysis tool.

I hope I was helpful on your doubts.
Max.

Hi Max, sorry this part is not clear to me:

> Yes, the clipped view will be used with the make2d command and it should
> Make2D the clipped model.

So you mean once you have set up a section plane it would change the behavior of the Make2D command and that command would no longer show the different options for which projection view to use and would just use the cut plane instead? Or should something like a "Section plane" entry show up in the projection view list?

Are you expecting for there to only be a single cut plane or should it be possible to make multiple cut planes that simultaneously cut away different areas of the model?

Just so you know, this is sounding like a very substantial amount of work involved, since it would include changes both to the viewport display engine and also to the hidden line generation mechanism as well.

- Michael

Hi Max, I guess the thing that I get a little bit confused between is whether you'd want to be extracting 2D curves of just the section plane cut itself or whether you want to have it look more like a temporary boolean and you want 3D views of that...

This gets me tripped up a bit when you say something like "Make2D of sections" - is it the curves of intersection at the section cut itself that you want to export or do you want to generate regular views but with cutaway areas?

- Michael

Sorry, I meant: "..so that it is possible to Make2D of the clipped model with the regular Make2D command or PDF export.
No changes at all in the Make2D command.
Yes, basically a cutting plane acts like a "temporary boolean".
And yes, it would be useful to have multiple cut planes at the same time, but more than that, it should be possible to save them in a list so that we can switch between them in no-time.
Thank you.
Max.

Hi Max, ok I think I understand properly now, thanks for the additional details. But there will defintely be quite a lot of work involved in making that happen.

- Michael

Putting it simple, cut planes are for:
- showing the client what's "inside" the model without having to hide important elements.
- having a complete understanding of how our model works (and if it works).
- allowing the user to clip the model and make those kind of adjustments that either would be very difficult, or would involve a continuous hiding\showing of many objects which puts a lot of stress to the user.
- a more accurate and smart modeling.

Yes, maybe it involves some work, but we're talking about a software that is changing the way of modeling and concepting things, and for that purpose this feature is so missing at the moment that it feels frustrating sometimes.

Regards,
Max.

Hi Max, I don't doubt that they will be useful - but things that involve quite a bit of work tend to be inherently difficult for me to schedule since I have extremely limited development time to spend... That makes it difficult for me to try and make any promises about exactly when any particular feature will actually get finished.

Things that are interconnected involving changes to more than one existing engine piece (like both the display engine and the hidden line removal one as this feature would require) can have a pretty high difficulty level, so that's just something I want to be clear about.

But it's great to hear feature requests here, and the more different people that tend to ask for the same type of features definitely has an impact on the priority of what I try to focus on.

- Michael

Sorry Michael, I understand and I'm not trying to put any pressure here, so it could be one step at a time.
One step could be trying and implement the cut on the display engine first, that sounds like the easiest part.
As for the hidden line engine I guess it's not crucial at the moment as we can use other software to get the drawings we need, I can live with that for longer.

Thank you,
Max.