Clicking the Sections button in the Extract Panel of the Action Tab will put the current mode into Section Extraction mode.
Sections can be extracted in two kinds of coordinate systems: Real-World and Camera View.
Real-World is the most commonly used method and extracts the sections in the current scene's coordinate system. The z values, or elevation values, are those found in the surface the sections are being extracted from.
Camera View is much less commonly used and uses the current camera as the origin instead of the scene's origin, and elevation values are effectively distances from the camera. This mode can be useful if you're trying to extract sections out of a vertical surface such as a wall or are trying to get sections of an object from a direction other than the z axis. Camera View mode gives the best results if the current camera is in parallel projection mode (perspective mode will distort the profile).
The width of the sections and the frequency, or interval, at which they are extracted along the designated path are controlled by three parameters.
Left Offset is the distance left of the path the sections will extend. Left is determined base on the direction the extraction path was drawn or "up station".
Right Offset is the distance right of the path the sections will extend. Right is determined base on the direction the extraction path was drawn or "up station".
Interval is the value that determines the distance along the path between sections.
The Polyline Simplification option will remove each vertex that is within a certain distance to its least squares approximation. Window is the number of neighbor vertices to use when generating the least squares approximation. Threshold is a positive number that determines the distance under which vertices will be removed from the polyline.
The Polyline Smoothing option will smooth each vertex in the polyline using a least squares approximation. Window is the number of neighbor vertices to use when generating the least squares approximation. Factor is a number between 0.0 and 1.0, 0.0 being no smoothing performed and 1.0 being fitting each vertex to its respective least squares line (usually makes the polyline extremely linear given a window size greater than 8).
If Draw Planes is enabled, Plane objects will be added to the project and the scene that follow each section line. The planes will extend from the upper to the lower extents of the cloud. These limits are the same as used with the bounding box option in the viewer.Extract Along Centerline when clicked the user is prompted for the .CL file to use. The horizontal location of the centerline is used and the sections are extracted perpendicular to the centerline.
After these options have been set to the preferred values, the user can extract the sections by left clicking in the viewer to draw the path polyline and right clicking to end it. The sections are saved to the project and can be drawn in CAD or exported to a .SCT file from the Project Tab.
Left-click to create polyline Left-click in the viewer to create the polyline for the profile, Right-click to end the polyline.
Tab Location(s): Action Tab
Panel and Button: Extract and Sections
Prerequisite: Open scene of a scan, cloud or mesh