Clippers

To place a clipper

1. 1Switch to 3D or Split. Pick Clipper on the Massing toolbar.
2. 2Move over the model. A plane lies flat on the face under the cursor, and in empty space it lies on the plane your view is looking along.
3. 3Click. The clipper is placed and becomes the active one, so the model is cut at once, with a solid face and a heavy outline where the plane passes through walls, floors and roofs.

The plane's arrow points at the side that is cut away. Placed on the top of a floor, with the arrow up, it takes away everything above that floor: a plan cut. Placed on the outside face of a wall it cuts nothing until you move it in. Clippers are named Clipper 1, Clipper 2 and so on, and they are listed in the outliner.

To move and turn it

A clipper is an object like any other: select it, then Move or Rotate it, or use its slide arrow to push the plane along its own direction and watch the cut travel through the building. Undo and Delete work as you would expect. The tray shows its position, rotation, size, Active and Reversed.

To use the right-click menu

• Active cut: turns this clipper's cut on or off. Only one clipper is active at a time, so turning one on turns the others off.
• Reverse cut: cuts away the other side of the plane.
• Align view: looks straight at the plane from the cut side, orthographic.

To work through a cut

While a cut is on, hovering, picking and snapping ignore what has been cut away, so a click goes through the cut to what you can see. In Display, Show clippers hides the plane symbols and Show cuts switches the cut off without losing the clippers. Both are saved for this browser.

To cut a diagram with a clipper

In the Diagram view, set Clip to Clipper and choose which one. The diagram is cut by that plane, with the same solid cut walls and build-up as a plan or section, and it redraws when you move the clipper. A clipper you later delete leaves the diagram uncut. See The Diagram view.