Documentation

Section Box & Clipping

Clip the 3D BIM model to a rectangular region using six hardware-accelerated clipping planes — reveal interior spaces, isolate a single floor, or examine structural details without moving the camera.

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Section Box & Clipping

The Section Box clips the 3D model to a rectangular region using six hardware-accelerated clipping planes. It's the fastest way to reveal interior spaces, isolate a single floor, or examine a structural detail without moving the camera or hiding individual elements.

Turning the Section Box on

  1. Load a model via File → Open Model.
  2. Click Section Box Off in the top-right overlay — it turns blue and reads Section Box On.
  3. The box initialises to the full model extents. Six sliders appear in the overlay — one per face — letting you drag any face inward to clip from that direction.

The six clipping faces

Key / ControlAction
X min / X maxLeft and right clipping faces — clip from the side
Y min / Y maxFront and back clipping faces — clip from the front
Z min / Z maxBottom and top clipping faces — clip from the floor or ceiling

Ganged sliders for constant-depth sweeps

Each axis has a Gang toggle. When ganged, the min and max sliders move as a fixed-thickness pair — drag one and the other follows. This lets you sweep a constant-depth slice through the model (a "slab cutter") without re-adjusting both handles. You can also type values directly into the number inputs beside each slider for precise positioning.

Resetting

Click Reset in the overlay to remove all clipping and return to the full model. Toggling Section Box Off preserves the last slider positions, so flipping it back on resumes where you left off.

Tip: To isolate a single floor: set Z min just below the slab and Z max just above the ceiling. Then gang the Z axis and sweep the slice upward floor by floor for a fast structural or MEP review. Combine with hiding the Structural category in the Model Tree to focus on MEP coordination only.

How it differs from an orthographic section drawing

Section Box is a navigation aid in 3D — hide everything outside this volume so you can see inside. It's interactive and ephemeral. Orthographic section drawings, by contrast, are 2D outputs — a scaled PDF you can mark up, dimension, and hand to a contractor. The two work well together: clip in 3D to find what you want to see, then generate the section drawing for documentation.

Related topics
  • 3D Viewer ToolsModel tree visibility, category filtering, level isolation, element search, fly-to navigation, saved views, and lighting presets in the 3D BIM viewer. Section Box, Orthographic Views, and Explode View have their own pages.
  • Orthographic Views & SectionsSnap the 3D camera to standard top, front, side, or back orthographic views, and generate scaled IFC-direct section drawings with line-weight hierarchy and material hatching.
  • Link PDF to 3DCalibrate a 2D sheet to its 3D model coordinates so clicking a markup flies the 3D viewer to the matching element, and vice versa.