Sections and details

A section is a drawing of its own, taken on a cut through the model: what the cut goes through is copied onto a reference layer, and you draw the section over it at its own scale. A detail is a framed part of a section, at a larger scale.

Placing the cut

1. Draw a Section line in the plan (SL): two points across the building, a click on the side to look at, then Enter for the next free name (A–A, B–B…).
2. A 3D pane without a cut takes the new one at once; otherwise choose it under Storeys in the 3D pane's strip, at Cut. The bar at the bottom left of the 3D pane belongs to the cut.
3. For a small area, click Bounding box in that bar and drag a rectangle on the cut: only what lies inside stays solid. The handles on its edges change it.
4. Look at the cut turns the view square onto it, in parallel: a live section.

A quick cut in 3D

1. In a 3D pane, click Cut under the view cube, then click a face in the model: a wall, the top of a slab. The cut lies on that face, so at first nothing is gone.
2. Push it into the building with Depth behind the face in the cut bar, in metres, or drag the arrow. Flip takes the other side away instead.
3. Look at the cut turns the view square onto it, as for a section line. × in the bar stops cutting in that pane.
4. To keep it, click Save… and choose For the project or Only for me. Only a saved cut offers New drawing….

Changing or deleting a cut

1. In the plan, click a section line with Select: its line, an arrow or a letter. It is picked on its own, never together with elements.
2. Its properties show the name, which you can change, and Flip and Delete. Delete removes it too, Esc lets go.
3. Its ends and depth are changed in 3D, in the cut bar and with the bounding box, not by dragging in the plan.

Making the drawing

1. In the cut bar, click New drawing…, check the title ("Section A–A") and the scale, and choose Create and open. It is offered on a saved cut, to those who may change the model.
2. The drawing opens as a 2D model of its own. The cut lies on a reference layer, heavy; what is seen beyond the cut lies on a second reference layer, thinner. Both are locked and faint, so you can snap to them but not change them.
3. Draw over them: hatches by material, build-ups, parts, dimensions and notes, on the drawing's own layers.
4. A drawing has a toolbar of its own: Draw, Material, Annotate and Modify, without walls, doors, stairs and the other parts of the building, which belong to the model. Typed, their keys say so. Each tool's card shows how it is used in a detail.

When the model changes

1. When the drawing opens, it compares its reference layers with the model as it is now. If the model has changed where the cut lies, a bar says so.
2. Show changes draws the new cut in colour over the old one. Take over replaces only the reference layers; your own drawing stays as it is, so check it against the new cut.

Details and printing

1. In a section, choose Detail callout (DT) and frame the area with two corners. Give the detail a title and a scale (1:10 at first); it is made on the same cut and opens.
2. The section shows the detail's frame, dashed, with a label that opens it, and the model's plans mark each drawing taken from it with a label that opens it too.
3. To print, open the print dialog of the model: sections and details are listed under Sections and details, unticked until you tick them. Each prints on a page of its own at its own scale, after the storeys. A drawing opened on its own prints itself, at its scale.

Limits

• A drawing never follows the model by itself: it checks for changes only when it opens, and changes only by Take over.
• Dimensions and notes in a drawing don't follow the cut either: after Take over, check them against the new one.
• A cut kept Only for me is in this browser alone, so a drawing can't be made from it on another one. Save the cut For the project if colleagues should use it.
• Section lines, detail frames and their labels show on screen only, never on paper.