Render a Section Cut

How to render a section by kc.arkitek

You're much better off planning this out in advance; while it's just adds to the complexity of the modeling process, the end result is much cleaner and easier to control. What I was proposing is a process of retrofitting an existing construct with a sectional view. To accomplish this quickly you'd have to explode any group or component that intersects the section plane. Otherwise, you would reconstruct those groups/components in 2 separate pieces so one side could be isolated for the section render...obviously this would be a more time-consuming proposition.

Anyway, here is a very sloppy, simplified method of accomplishing this task. Bear in mind, this is not the ONLY way to do this...but, you may be able to adapt this method to work for you.

1. make a copy of my model file just to make sure you don't screw up the original.

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2. create a section plane in SU and move it where you want the cut.

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3a. select the section plane, right click, and select "Add Section-Cut Face" (the link to the ruby script is earlier in this thread).

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3b. select whatever options you want in the dialog box.

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4a. double-click the new group that the script made to go into group editing mode, Ctrl-A, and unhide all.

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4b. explode the section face group.

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5a. select the section plane alone, and rotate it 180 degrees. you should now see the geometry you wan to omit.

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5b. this is the tricky part...carefully delete or isolate all the geometry on the "omit" side of the section plane. I would use parallel projection for this part to make the selections a little easier. when you're finished all you should see is the exploded section plane we created earlier with the script.

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6. after deleting/isolating the omitted geometry, you can delete the section plane, and also paint that section face however you want.

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That's it...I know it's dirty and watered-down, but it works. Hope that helps...good luck!