Section Tool in SketchUp

When using the section tool to take a slice out of the middle of a complex model in SketchUp, is there a way to not have it so are looking through all beams that pass through the the plane?

For example, I have a complex model that I wish to take images of to illustrate a number of concepts, this requires me to slice it into sections. The problem with this is, the beams are all left open.

I could of course just create a separate group from the slice and temporarily add planes on the ends, just was wondering if there is a faster way.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Maybe you can post a pic?

If the section cuts right through the timber, or is right on a timber's face, then it will look 'open.' To solve that just move the section a little bit (an inch?) off the face.

If you want the ends of perpendicular timbers to be filled, that's called poche, and you can google that for solutions.

Look for the plugin called 'SectionCutFace'
Its takes this:


And makes it look like this:


You can change the color of the 'fill'.
The other option is to go into your style settings and change the 'inside' color of a face to match the outside color. You'll still see the lines inside the timber - but the color will be the same (or better still, just change the default inside color black, to match the linework).

My only beef with section cut face is that it's not live linked. So if you change anything, you have to redo the section. I've never had good luck with changing the inside fill colors. I usually just draw black rectangles in Layout.

For that a few other reasons, I'm slowly moving towards buying a new CAD package. And thanks to your great conference session Mike, I know which one I want. Just saving my pennies.

Thanks guys, this was helpful

For my purposes, I chose to place the sectioned image in an outside program and draw the ends of the beams in manually. Took about 2 minutes, if that.

On another topic, what is a good 3d pdf tool? Free would be nice, but I realize that there is little that is free that is worth having, most of the time.

Not true. The new SectionCutFace tool can be set to 'automatic' 'on demand' or never for updating.

Automatic makes complex models with many section cuts slow and crash prone - but I've been using 'on demand' exclusively and its been working great.

Do you need it in PDF? Check out SketchFab. You host your model online and anyone with a modern browser can spin it around and look at it.

The pro version lets you annotate, lock, etc.

Here is a link to a TFG project:
https://sketchfab.com/models/1l7T6LI3uSzo3RwxHReUsnLABX9