Cutting Planes

Inspect internal parts by slicing through geometry.

Applicable to:

All products and plans

Overview

Reveal internal geometry by applying a cutting plane to selected objects. Once applied, the cutting plane can be translated or rotated to inspect subassemblies and inner details.

Cutting planes are temporary and will disappear when the browser tab is closed.

⁠

Apply a Cutting Plane

Select one or more geometries in the scene that you wish to cut away to reveal internal parts.

Open the Create menu and choose Cutting Plane.

A translucent cutting plane appears with a gizmo.

The initial orientation of the cutting plane is based on the current view orientation being rotated to align to the nearest orthogonal axes.

The size of the cutting plane is based on the combined volume of the selected parts.

Translate or rotate the cutting plane to reposition.

Note: hold shift to snap the rotation to 5 degree increments.

Press the Delete key to remove the cutting plane.

⁠

If you apply a cutting plane to external geometry only, it will slice away those outer parts—revealing the internal components beneath.

Overview

Apply a Cutting Plane

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.