Long time listener, first time caller, so to speak:
We finally got solid sections a few years ago. Around the same time, a plug-in called Skalp came out that enabled us to generate sections fills with multiple graphics/materials. I never mastered Skalp, and it appears to be moribund.
Now that we pay $300 a year in reliable income to Trimble, how about a native feature that lets us add different colors and materials to the solid section cut?
*yes, I know how to make a section cut and treat that object as more geometry that can be edited to achieve the desired section look, but thatās much slower, adds complexity to the model, and needs to be manually updated if the section moves.
** please forgive me if this, or other of my suggestions has been put on wishlist (many times) before. Those have proved difficult for me to find, and bringing the issue back to light canāt hurt.
Another good feature request. Sorry to offer another in-the-meantime sort of option but you can do this sort of thing now with TIGās Section Cut Face plugin.
As a matter of fact, Skalp had this feature implemented many moons (official release 2014) before the native solid section (2018)
Section cuts updating dynamically based on object, layer or texture.
This essential, basic functionality could be native if there is a more āsolidā way of how SketchUp treats their objects and distinguishes the Materials and textures.
In a world where resources and heritage of them getās more and more important, software that exchange ideas should be easy to generate reports and insights.
This may sound feeble (as Iām sure itās there), but I canāt find the plug-in in the Extension Warehouseā¦ Any more information on its name or anything that would help in my search would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! Glad to see that Sketchucation is still a going concern, and thank you for making plugins. Any chance the Section Cut Face plug-in allows one to assign different materials to different Groups/Components being sectioned? That would essentially do what I originally put in the wishlist at the start of this thread.
Yes. You can apply different materials to different section cuts. If you donāt need the auto-update feature you can unlock the section cut and apply different materials to the different faces in the group, too.
I installed TIG Section Cut Face plugin and was only able to generate a locked group of lines and edges in the plane of the section itself, this geometry could then have any desired material applied to it. This seems to be the same thing as the (newish) āCreate Group from Sliceā command in the context menu (or the way I used to do it, which was to draw a flat plane 1/64" from the section plane itself and then intersect with model).
The example gif you included above makes it look as if the Section Fill material itself (from Styles->Edit) was being controlled by the Section Cut Face plugin and that no new groups needed to be created.
Maybe I am missing something? I am finding that I have been complacent these past 10 years or so in keeping up with plugins, so I know itās possible I didnāt fully understand TIGās Section Cut Face tool.
My features request was to be able to assign the actual Section Fill material, as seem in Styles->Edit, to individual Groups and Components being sectioned. Additionally, that Section Fill material would need to include whatever raster images are in a given material. The current Section Fills in Styles->Edit. removes the raster and just applies color.
In other words, what I would love for the team to add, essentially, would be Skalp, but native, easier to use, and up to date. (I never could get Skalp to work).
My Section Cut Face locks its group by default.
However if you select it and right-click the context-menu includes āUnlockā [native tool] - also available through Entity Infoā¦
So unlock it, edit the group apply a material color to the face[s] and then close the edit and re-lock the group afterwards to avoid accidentally moving or deleting itā¦
Unfortunately the use of textures is limited as they wonāt be used if the section is modified - but a ācolorā or preexisting texture will be available and reused howeverā¦
I added the texture to the In Model textures before creating the section cut face. Then it was in the list of materials to choose from. You could make multiple section cuts and use different materials.
