Description
The Cutting frame (shown below) provides tools for scanning the interior of block volumes.
The Cutting frame has the most commonly used tools needed to define a cutting plane.
At the top of the frame, Enable Cutting will turn on an active cutting plane which can be used to scanned through the currently selected
block(s).
For unstructured blocks, this cutting plane can be an XYZ Cartesian plane (XY, XZ or YZ) or a User Specified cut (explained
below). Note that, for clarity, the active cutting plane is rendered slightly larger than the entities being examined. Furthermore, it will have a
green border frame and semi-opaque shaded interior making it easier to visualize exactly where the cutting plane intersects the model. The frame of the
cutting plane can be clicked and dragged to a new position directly in the Display window. Additionally, the cutting plane can be stepped through the
block's volume using the left and right arrow pad arrow keys on the keyboard.
For structured blocks, the cutting plane can be either the same XYZ Cartesian plane as for unstructured blocks, it can be an IJK
computational coordinate plane, or it can be a User Specified cut. IJK cutting planes can also be stepped through the block's volume using
the left and right arrow pad arrow keys on the keyboard. Note that IJK cutting planes are also available for prism blocks only in the K
direction.
Tip: IJK cutting planes allow you to quickly scan through the interior of a structured block(s). This is particularly useful if you
have found that you have highly skewed cells or cells with negative volume and need to visualize why such cells are misformed.
The Enable Cutting toggle turns the active cutting planes on and off. Check this box to have the XYZ, IJK (structured blocks
only), or User Specified cutting plane rendered. Note that only one type can be active at any given time.
Below the radio buttons, there is a text field surrounded by single and double arrow buttons. The arrow buttons can be used for fine increment scanning and
the double arrow buttons for coarse increment scanning. The exact coordinate value (XYZ cutting) or computational coordinate (IJK cutting)
can be defined in two ways: it can be entered directly into the provided text field, or it can be specified by selecting a point from the Display
window (e.g. a grid point on a block's bounding surface domain, a database entity, a visible overset object, a grid point on
a existent examine/persistent cutting plane, or an examine extrema
cell). Note that you need to use the Shift+LMB shortcut in order to be able to select a point from the Display window. When doing
this, a small circle on the mouse pointer will indicate that a point is ready for selection (shown in the image below).
Tip: You can make a cutting plane slice through a metric's maximum or minimum volume cell by simply rendering
these extrema cells and then using the Shift+LMB shortcut to select one of their
vertices. This will force the cutting plane to exactly pass through the selected point.
Use the Shift+LMB shortcut to be able to select a point from the Display window to define the position of a new examine cutting plane. When doing this, a
small circle on the mouse pointer will indicate that a point is ready for selection.
The Make Persistent Cut command will allow you to transform the examine cutting plane being defined into a persistent cutting plane. For more
information on persistent cutting planes, review the Create, Cut Planes section.
Note: The Make Persistent Cut command allows you to create persistent examine cutting planes. In contrast with regular examine
cutting planes, persistent planes remain visible outside the Examine functionality.