Create Section Cut Surface

Creates a section cut defined by a line on a surface. The surface must be a Design Area Element (one or multiple) and must be planar. The line must be a single line with one start and one end point. The surface section cut integrates forces for any elements it intersects in the plane it lies on.

Inputs

Number	Name	Object Type	Description	Optional
1	Line	GH_Curve	A single line with two points (one start, one end) that can be converted into the specified Object Type.	No
2	Side	System.Int32	An integer, either 0 or 1, that defines which side to integrate forces on. A value of 0 integrates on the top side (positive Z) while a value of 1 integrates on the bottom side (negative Z). Default value is 0.	Yes
3	Name	System.String	User-defined name of the section cut. If none, assigns an empty string.	Yes

Outputs

Number	Name	Object Type	Description
1	Section Cut	SectionCutSurface	A surface section cut.

Create Section Cut Surface.png

Local Axes

All section cuts have local axes. This type of section cut has local axes defined as follows:

Local Y-axis is oriented in the direction of the line used to define the surface section cut.
Local Z-axis is oriented in the plane of the surface being sampled, perpendicular to the Local Y-axis.
The Local X-axis is defined as the the Local Y-axis crossed with the Local Z-axis. This will be normal to the surface being sampled, as both the Local Y and Local Z-axes lie in the plane of the surface being sampled.

The local axes can be reported by deconstructing the section cut. This will produce a LocalAxes object, which can be further deconstructed using the Deconstruct Local Axes component. This will produce a 3D vector, which can be visualized in Rhino using the Vector Display or Vector Display Ex components.

Displaying local axes generally requires a vector, an amplitude, and an origin point. It is generally advisable to use the section cut’s centroid as the origin point for your local axis vector. The section cut centroid is one of the outputs of the Deconstruct Section Cut component.

An example showing how to display section cut local axes is provided here.