Capturing a section view

Capturing a section view

A section is a cut through your model, captured as an image with the observations on it marked. Put them in a report and a reader can see where observations sit within the structure, not just in a list.

Sections live in Report mode. Switch to it with the mode picker in the header.

There is no Capture button

To capture the view, click a face of the section box in the 3D view. The face you click decides the direction you are looking from.

Creating a section

  1. Switch to Report mode.
  2. Click + Section. An unsaved section appears, and nothing is written yet.
  3. Position the box over the part of the structure you want to cut through.
  4. Click the face of the box you want to look from. The view is captured.
  5. Name the section.
  6. Click Save.

Save stays disabled until you have captured a view. If it is greyed out, step 4 has not happened. Hover it and the tooltip says the same.

Adjusting the captured view

Once captured, the section view has its own zoom: scroll to zoom, click once to jump to 2×, drag to pan when zoomed in, and a chip to reset back to the whole view.

Observations appear as coloured dots matching their class, so a reader can tie the section back to the observation list.

Recapturing

Click a different face and the view is replaced. There is nothing to undo first.

Unsaved versus saved sections

Unsaved Saved
Saving Save button in the footer Automatic, with no button
Discarding Discard in the footer Delete from the section's menu

An unsaved section with a captured view asks before discarding. An empty one discards without asking, since there is nothing to lose.

Where have the 3D tools gone?

In Report mode, the 3D view shows only what applies to sections. Hidden there:

  • The drawing tools: Tag, Line, Area
  • First person and Home
  • The clipping box and Settings
  • The compass

You can still navigate: drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, and the keyboard controls all work. And you can still click a face of the section box to capture a view.

To get the rest back, switch to Inspect with the mode picker in the header. Everything returns.

The mode picker in the header, showing Inspect, AI Review and Report

Putting sections in a report

Sections are included via include section plans when you generate a report. See Creating and generating a report.

Why can't I capture or save?

What you see What it means
Save is greyed No view captured yet. Click a face of the box.
Clicking a face does nothing You may have dragged rather than clicked, so try a cleaner click. Also check a section is selected.
No + Section button You do not have permission to create sections.
No section box on the model Select a section first; the box belongs to the selected one.
No toolbar at the bottom of the 3D view, and no compass Both are hidden in Report mode. Switch to Inspect for them.

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