About Dynamic Sectioning Using Section Plane  

 

Dynamic Sectioning allows you to visualize a section of a part at a specified position.

Topics discussed are:
 

About Sectioning

When designing or reviewing a part, a global view is sometimes not enough. Dynamic Sectioning functionality is useful to visualize the part by section in design phase and to detect potential section issues during review process.

With the help of this capability, you can obtain section view of the part. You can choose the position to cut by moving section plane.
 
 

Creating Section Plane

To create a section plane, you need to click Dynamic Sectioning in the Dynamic Sectioning toolbar. The section plane is automatically displayed. The center of the plane is located at the origin of the local axis system relative to the part. A section plane has limits and its own local axis system. The letters U, V and W represent the axes. The W-axis is the normal vector of the plane.

  Default Position of Section Plane  3D Section View at Default Position

A 3D section view is generated at this default position specified by section plane. It is dynamically updated according to the modifications made in the position of the section plane. You can select the section plane position with the help of purple pointer as shown below.
 

Manipulating Section Plane Directly

You can re-dimension, move and rotate section plane. As you move the cursor over the diagonals of the plane, the plane edges or the local axis system, its appearance changes and arrows appear to help you.

Resize

You can resize the section plane by selecting one of its sides and dragging it in the direction indicated by the arrows.

Translation

You can move the section plane by selecting one of its diagonals and dragging it to the desired location along its normal.

Rotation

You can rotate the section plane around its axis by selecting the desired arc (U-V, V-W or W-U) or axis (U, V or W) and dragging it in the direction indicated by the arrows.
 
 

Position of the Section Plane on Different Geometries

A section plane is positioned according to the selected geometry. In this section, positioning of the section plane on planes, canonical faces, non canonical faces and edges are discussed.

Planes and Non Canonical Faces

A section plane is placed on the face/plane at the selection point which becomes its origin. In case of plane selected from the specification tree, the origin of this selected plane becomes origin of section plane. 

Canonical Faces

Default Position of the Section Plane

On the canonical faces, default position of the section plane is such that:

  • It passes through the axis of the canonical face.

  • Origin of the section is the projection of the selection point onto the axis of the canonical face.

  • Normal of the section plane is on the line defined by the origin of the plane and the selection point.

Position of the Section Plane using Shift

If you press Shift while selecting the position of the section plane on the canonical face, it gets placed such that:

  • Section plane is normal to the axis of the canonical face.

  • Origin of the section is the projection of the selection point onto the axis of the canonical face.

Position of the Section Plane using Ctrl

If you press Ctrl while selecting the position of the section plane on the canonical face, it gets placed on the face at the selection point as in case of non canonical faces.

If you simultaneously press both Shift and Ctrl while positioning section plane, it gets positioned as mentioned in the Ctrl behavior.

Edges

Default Position of the Section Plane

On the edges, default position of the section plane is tangent to the edge at the selection point.

Position of the Section Plane using Shift

If you press Shift while selecting the position of the section plane on edges, it passes through the tangent to the edge at selection point. In this case, normal is computed depending on the viewpoint.