Section Plane Tool

Use the Section Plane Tool to create section cuts enabling you to view geometry within your model. Activate the Section Plane Tool from the Construction Toolbar or the Tools menu.

Creating Section Cut Effects

To add a section plane entity:

1. Select the Section Plane Tool. The cursor changes to a pointer with a section plane.

Note - Press the Esc key at any point during the operation to start over.

2. Click on a face to create a Section Plane entity and resulting section cut effect.

Note - A section plane will not work on a selection set (you cannot preselect only those items you want to slice). Instead, the section plane will create a section slice in all entities in the current context and, therefore, the slice will expand to cover all entities in the context.

Manipulating Section Planes

You can use the Move Tool and Rotate Tool to reposition section planes just as you reposition other entities. Additional methods for manipulating section planes follows.

Reverse Cutting Direction

The direction of a section plane can be reversed by context-clicking on the section plane and selecting reverse from context menu.

Changing The Active Section Plane

Newly placed section planes are active until another entity, such as another section plane, is selected.

There are two ways to activate a section plane: double-click on the section plane with the Select Tool or context-click on the section plane and select Activate from the context menu.

Note - One section plane can be active for each context in your model. Therefore a section plane within a group or component can be active at the same time, because they are in separate contexts, as a section plane outside of any group or component. A model that has a group that also contains two other groups has four different contexts (one context outside of any group, one context inside the top level group, and one context each for the groups contained within the top-level group), and can have four active sections at once.

Creating Grouped Section Slices

1. Context-click on a Section Plane, then select Create Group from Slice from the context menu.
2. This will generate new edges, encapsulated within a group, wherever the Section Plane intersects with faces.

This Group may be moved off to the side as a section outline, or it may be immediately exploded, making the edges merge with the geometry from which they were generated. This technique allows you to quickly make slices through any complex shape.

Exporting Sections

Sketchup allows you to export section cut effects (your model with a section slice) and section slices themselves.

Exporting Models with Section Cut Effects

Exporting models with section cut effects is the equivalent of exporting any model as a bitmap image file. Section planes and section cuts will appear in the exported file depending on the visibility of the section plane and section cut.

Section Slice

SketchUp can also export section slices using the Section Slice export feature. 2D vector sections can be accurately scaled and measured similarly to other 2D vector exports.

Using Sections with Scenes

Active Section Plane may be saved to a scene. Section cut effects will animate during animations.

Aligning your View

Use the Align View command from the Section Plane Context menu to re-orient the model view to a view perpendicular to the section plane. Use this command, in conjunction with Paraline mode, to quickly generate sectional elevation or 1-point perspective views of your model.

= Functionality only available in SketchUp Pro