Customizing slicing options

View cut slices are similar to the on-cut portion of a view cut, but they are displayed at a series of intervals along the range of the active view cut, rather than on just the cutting plane itself. You can use the settings on the Slicing tabbed page in the Visualization module to display a series of view cut slices along the range of the active view cut. You can display view cut slices at regular intervals along the range of the active view cut, or you can display the slices along a predefined path in your session. When you enable slicing, you can also display the resultant force and moment at that location of the model.

See Also
Creating a path through your model

Context:

You can specify slicing options that are common to all view cuts or that are specific to a particular view cut. View cut slicing can be enabled only when a single view cut is active and only in the Visualization module. However, if you define cut-specific slicing options and obtain reports for multiple active view cuts, the slicing options are considered in the free body computations. You can display slices for both translational and rotational view cut display. Slices are displayed along the entire range of the active view cut regardless of any repositioning of the view cut in the Motion of Selected Cut options in the View Cut Manager. For rotational view cuts, you can also rotate the slices and change their axis of rotation.

If you enable view cut slicing along a path in a model that has a great deal of folding or curvature, the cutting surfaces of the slices can sometimes cross different parts of your model at the same time. You can limit or eliminate this behavior by focusing on a subset of your model: either use a display group to hide a portion of your model or change the path definition so that slicing is displayed only along some of the curved parts.

  1. From the main menu bar in the Visualization module, select OptionsView Cut.

    The View Cut Options dialog box appears.

    Tip: You can also use the view cut manager to customize the cut options using one of the following methods:
    • To specify options common to all view cuts, select ToolsView CutManager from the main menu bar, and click Options.
    • To specify options for a particular view cut, select ToolsView CutManager from the main menu bar, and click the icon to the right of the view cut for which you want to specify options.

  2. Click the Slicing tab.
  3. If you are defining cut-specific options, select Use these options.
  4. Toggle on Display slicing to enable slicing for view cuts in your session.
  5. If you want to display view cut slices along the entire range of the view cut, select Step through the active view cut's range. If you display view cut slices or free body cuts in multiple locations for the selected view cut, you can also customize the minimum and maximum values of the line segment within which Abaqus/CAE will display the resultant forces and moments. By default, the minimum and maximum values are set to allow for distribution of slices throughout the entire model.
  6. If you want to display view cut slices along a predefined path, select Step along a predefined path, then do the following:
    1. Select the path.
    2. Specify the locations where you want to display view cut slices using the Display slices at path nodes option:

      • Toggle on this option to place the view cut slices at the nodes that comprise the path definition.

      • Toggle off this option to place the view cut slices at a number of regular intervals along the path. Specify the number of slices from the field and slider at the bottom of the dialog box.

    3. Specify the location of the summation point for the resultant forces and moments using the Set free body summation point on the path option:

      • Toggle on this option to place the summation point for the resultant forces and moments on the selected path.

      • Toggle off this option to place the summation point for the resultant forces and moments at the location about which resultant moments are taken.

  7. Click Apply to implement your changes.

    The view cuts change to reflect your specifications.

    By default, your changes are saved for the duration of the session and will affect all subsequent view cuts in that viewport. If you want to retain your changes for subsequent sessions, save them to a file. For more information, see Saving customizations for use in subsequent sessions.