Update to Section Views - Modular

[Nickefth]

Hey All, 

I use SW at work now instead of Inventor (due to policy) and there are a few things SW is just miles ahead of Inventor on. One of those is section views. I think section views are one of the weakest features of inventor, and with section views being such an important tool in designing, Autodesk should improve the usability of the feature ASAP.

I propose an overhaul of the section viewing workflow for Inventor to mimic SW sectioning. Below is a screenshot of the SW sectioning tool immediately after I click the button (default state of the sectioning tool). Note a few points:

- Sectioning tool is not hidden in the view tab, but easily accessible (circled in red)

- Clicking on it initiates a half section at a principle plane automatically. No need to select "quarter", "half", etc... or the plane itself

- To switch  principle planes, just click on the appropriate one (red arrow)

- You can drag the cut plane using the orange arrow without dimensioning (orange arrow, circled in red).

- To make a quarter section, you can enable "section 2".

- You can exclude bodies from section cutting using the "section by body" feature.

Overall, SW has the best sectioning of any CAD program I've used. It is extremely intuitive and requires few "clicks" compared to Inventor. Inventor section views are one of the most painful-to-use common features in my opinion. I won't go into the details but I find it very clunky. SW does it in a significantly more useful way, and for someone like me who designs complex internal assemblies, having an easy sectioning tool is critical. For that reason alone, SW might have my business in the future. It is just that much better.

[SEC_MECH]

To add to your list of section features - I would like the previously used section to become active when I click the toolbar icon so that I don't have to redefine the required section on every use.

Use case: Zoom discussion with product managers who want to discuss the outside aesthetic but occasionally need to see inside the product to see how features relate. Toggling the section on and off during the online discussion would be much better than having to define the section every time someone wanted to see inside.

[swalton]

Currently Section View settings are stored in the Design View Rep.  If you need to swap between sectioned and non-sectioned views of a part or assembly, create a new Design View Rep for each.

[Nickefth61]

SEC_CAD, great idea on the section view toggling. I think if they improved the overall tool first, that would be a really cool addition that SW doesn't have (AFAIK).

Swalton, understood. Honestly, the Design View Rep is another feature I'm not 100% thrilled with, but I agree that this will work. Still, using the section tool to create the view in the first place is still a headache due to the lack of usability of the sectioning tool.

---

---

[PhilSchBell]

Some of the users here want to have a section view based on a sketch, so you are not bound to the 3 kinds of section view. Also you should be able to save these section views as custom views.

[Nickefth61]

@PhilSchBell That makes sense. In SW you can also choose to do a section view off a sketch. 

One other really cool feature - you can easily choose to section by component. Very nifty feature. 

- Pick a plane/sketch to section off of

- Pick components to include/exclude from the cut

I like your idea of saving section views as custom views. Very useful. Overall, I think Inventor really just has a long way to go to making their sectioning tool useful and user-friendly. The current config now is just bad. Hopefully someone sees this and decides it's worth pursuing!

[kqslv]

非常支持！！！

[biuroN3VGD]

Section through the axis (e g hole, shaft) would be useful too.