Named clip volumes and their association with saved views

                Clip volumes are used to limit the displayed volume for a view in order to work within a limited context of model without being hindered by geometry that is not of interest.

                Named fences can be used to save and invoke a specific volume of model in future. A useful feature of named fence is that we can associate it with saved view.

How to create a named fence

Create a clip volume. In tool settings dialog, use the Save button to save the clip volume as a named fence.

How to associate named fences to saved views 

Saved view can store a clip volume in it and while applying the saved view, you have the option to apply the clip volume along with other view data.

While creating a saved view, in tool settings dialog we can pick any of the named fences created earlier. This way we can link a named fence to a saved view.

We can also change them later from Saved view dialog using "Clip Volume" column.

There are two methods to link a named fence to saved view.

• Associative clip volume
• Non-associative clip volume

                To make associative clip volume, we just need to check the toggle called "Associative Clip Volume" in tool setting dialog while creating saved view.
Now let me explain the difference between an associative and non-associative clip volume. For associative clip volume, saved view always points to the source clip element. So, whenever the clip volume is modified those changes are reflected in saved view too. On the other hand, for non-associative clip volume, saved view points to its own local copy of the source clip volume. So any changes to the source clip volume won't be reflected in the saved view.

                Internally, in both the cases, we store own local copy of clip volume inside saved view but associative always points to source clip volume and non-associative to the local clip volume as described in the following diagram. Local copy stored in associative saved view is used for fallback case. If source clip volume is deleted then associative uses its local copy to clip and hence works same as non-associative saved view.

Note 1: Double-click to view Full Screen Note
2: To run this video in Fire fox Click Here to download plug in.

 

Unnamed clip volume and non-associative clip volume of saved views are shown as "(Untitled) ".

More blogs coming up, so be there...