NUBIGON features a versatile cross-section tool that is helpful for multiple use cases.
Contents
What can I do with the Cross Section tool?
- Clip the scene to hide specific regions.
- Extract planar sections from point clouds.
- Animate clips and cross-sections for videos.
Get started
Launch the Cross Section window
from the sidebar.
Press Activate to define a cross-section plane.
Press Clip to clip the scene against the cross-section plane.
Select which object types (point cloud, mesh, CAD, section) the clip should apply to from the Category dropdown. This is particularly useful for showcasing different project deliverables with screenshots and animations.
Plane Definition
We offer several ways to define a cross-section plane:
1) Defining cross-section planes interactively with Set plane:
- Horizontal defines a horizontal plane based on a user-chosen location on the viewport.
- Vertical generates a vertical plane based on two user-defined points.
- Free produces a plane based on three user-defined points.
- Parallel sets a new plane origin while preserving its orientation.
2) The plane can also be parametrically defined:
- X, Y, Z are the coordinates of a point on the plane (plane origin).
- Elevation angle
is the angle between the plane and the ground plane. - Rotation angle
is the angle of the plane around the z-axis.
3) Use Copy from section to restore plane parameters from a previously created section.
Toggle Flip to invert the plane’s direction so that the opposite side of the scene is visible.
You can define up to three planes using the Plane 2 and 3 tabs.
Learn more about defining cross section planes. Section
We show a preview of points with a distance tolerance to the plane. Creating a section projects these points onto the plane and generates a 2D point cloud.
Tolerance determines the thickness of the points projected onto the plane. For sparse point clouds, you may want to increase this parameter.
You can create up to 50 additional sections on either side of the plane with Add more.
If multiple sections are being created
- Interval determines the distance between the sections.
- All sections will be populated in a group with the given name in the Object List.
The resulting section(s) can be exported as DWG/DXF files.
Learn more about creating and exporting sections. Display Options
Choose if the plane and the section preview are displayed.
In the Cross Section Preferences, you can set the plane color, section color, section point size and plane scale.