Cross-sectional view

[Anonymous]

Really impressed with MeshMixer so far - it's allowed me to achieve some tweaks (shell, tube, minor sculpting) on a particularly stubborn model all my prior tooling chokes on.

But there seems to be an obvious feature I'm missing.  How do you view a temporary cross-section of your part to gain easy access to interior surfaces?

(I tried a fudged approach by temporarily slicing the part, making my edits, then Combining it back together, but it seems my edits caused minor changes to the mating surfaces so it no longer patches cleanly)

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

ATM the only way to hide regions of a mesh is to Separate the region as a isolated object.

You don't have to "slice" it via PlaneCut (also this attempt works too if NoFill was set). You  can separate a selection (via Edit/Separate - Hotkey Y) and hide it via object browser. This allows more than one region to be separated/hidden.

To avoid editing of the open boundaries which is needed in this separated state you need to set "FixedBoundary" in the different tools' options (e.g. in SCULPT > Filters , or SELECT/Edit/Remesh: BoundaryMode ....). Admit: This needed option is missing in some tools (e.g. SELECT/Deform/Wrap) and you might need tools as ANALYSIS/Inspector to repair.

If the boundaries were fixed while doing edits on the parts combining the parts back to one object and running EDIT/CloseCracks should do the job to weld again.

[Anonymous]

Thanks!  Didn't know about the Y hotkey; will need to play with it to get a feel for how it works.

In case you're wondering, this is the part involved.  I managed to work around by peeking through the openings and zooming VERY close to get "inside" the shell wherever I needed to edit.  It was tedious but eventually got the job done.  I'm impressed with how tractable MeshMixer is - this was my first real session using it.

[Anonymous]

After I use the Y hotkey to separate a selection, can I recombine it again without hassle?

When I select the two separated parts and hit Combine, I wind up with a "non-manifold" complex part.  When I select the two facegroups instead and hit Join, I wind up with the seam traced by a blue line and a border around it auto-selected in orange.

Really, all I want to do right now is see inside my part to ease editing.  Zooming in super-close until the camera goes inside is a pain.

[Anonymous]

After you combined the parts back to one object you only have to run EDIT/CloseCracks to get rid of the open boundaries (if you didn't modify the seams).

(Note there are two "edit" menus in MM:

With "EDIT", "SELECT", "MESHMIX".... (all in capital letters) I refer to the lefthand side bar.

There's also an Edit submenu within SELECT (where you'll find e.g. Join). In this case I use SELECT/Edit/Join)