This one should be pretty easy to implement…I hope!
Oftentimes I have many Section Planes in a model.
I typically use “Cutaway” style sections (they look nice and are informative).
However the amount of detail in the image is usually too much when the reader wants to focus 90% the attention on the Section Cut line itself, not the background context.
We can use Fog to blur the background of the section plane, if we set it up on each scene. We can also hide inactive section planes and keep the active plane visible for a scene. However…that all takes some effort.
I propose a new option under Styles which enables only the Active Section Cut to be shown so that it provides a white-out effect on the background detail.
Also, it would be great if we could have a Selection Toys option to “Select Inactive Section Planes” (and then it’s easier to hide them, if that’s what we need to do). (someone tell Thom)?.
Current workarounds:
-Donley method (native)
-Curic Section (extension)
-Section Cut Face (extension)
When you use Curic Section, the active section geometry is created as a locked group, which makes it quick and easy to select all > hide all unlocked geometry > update scene. Resulting in a scene with only the section cut (I believe you can do the same with Section Cut Face). This scene can stacked as a viewport in Layout.
I have a plugin written that adds a white plane X” distance off the face of the cut. I assign these to a layer and make the fill semi transparent. Works great for Raster or Hybrid (otherwise you need to stack viewports).
Would love to have a Fog option to be able to be tied to distance from cut, but I gave up on fog long ago and use my whiteout method.
Yes that method is one of my go tos.
Raster viewport, then white overlay, then stacked section cut in wireframe mode (vector).
Because the background image can be very dense and slow to process, but you want to the crisp linework of the section cut.
Extensions like Curic etc are even more options for doing similar things. We learn and adopt so many “techniques” (workarounds) when as simple tickbox would be a bit more intuitive.
Novel, but do not encounter other issues with numerous white planes in the model?
I use them a fair bit (eg, to make imported aerial photos appear lighter), but they always seem to get in the way of other things, eg snapping and eyedropper issues, colour accuracy, improper shadows, and then sometimes rendering issues occur
It’s good to have options though.
Does your extension automatically add a Section Cut Slice to the plane…that’d be handy. Then we could finally snap to something tangible!
I only use them on sections (and plan section cuts) so they don’t affect shadows, etc.
The plugin just creates the face, sets it to a certain oversize of the extents of the section plane, and places it a specified distance behind the plane. @TIG wrote it for me a long long time ago, and I keep finding ways to use it.
I don’t have issues of them ‘getting in the way’ - my templates all have ‘white out’ layers built in - all the transverse white out planes live on a layer, as well as plans, and longitudinal…
