Surface Edit > Trim > Trim Surface
 
 
 

Trims or splits surfaces using curves-on-surface.

Trim Control

3D Trimming

If this box is checked, you can select curves to project onto the surface while within the tool. By default it is unchecked.

Vector Options

These options are only available if 3D Trimming is turned on.

X, Y, Z

Specifies a projection vector along that axis.

View

Specifies a vector normal to the current view. The vector is not drawn in the view windows.

If the current view is changed, click Refresh View Vector to update the vector.

NoteYou can project different curves along different views vectors. However, if you click Refresh View Vector, or select a different vector option, all curves-on-surface are updated to match the current projection vector.
Picked

Lets you specify the name of an existing vector in the Picked Vector field, or pick the vector in the view.

Normal

The curve is projected onto each point on the surface along the normal at that point, instead of along a single vector direction.

Picked Vector

This text field only appears when Picked is selected. It displays the name of the selected vector object. Alternatively, you can type in the name of a vector object.

Refresh View Vector

This button only appears if View is selected. Click it to update the vector if the view has been modified

Retain Vector

Click this button to create a vector construction object in the view windows.Otherwise, the tool uses the vector direction you specified, but you are not able to see and re-use the vector.

Display Options

Show Intersections

If this box is checked, green locators indicate the intersections between the trim curves, and between the trim curves and trim surfaces. Yellow locators indicate trim curve endpoints that do not intersect any other curve-on-surface or trim surface edge.

Region Selector U Size/V Size

The relative size of the trim region selectors in the U and V parametric directions on the surface. Adjust these sliders if the selectors (crosses) appear too small or too large on your model. The values range from 0.01 to 2.0.

NoteThe Shrink Surface option has been replaced by a plug-in called shrinkToTrim which can be loaded through Utilities > Plug-in Manager . shrinkToTrim shrinks the UV parameters of the underlying surface to cover only the visible (non-trimmed) parts of the surface. This functionality is useful when applying label-style textures to the surface.

Control Options

Chain Select

If this box is checked, selecting a curve to project also selects all other curves that are tangent continuous with it.

Create History

If this box is checked, the projected curves have construction history. Editing or transforming the curves and surfaces causes the projection and trim operations to be re-executed.

This option is only available if 3D Trimming is turned on.

See Also