Have you ever used Assembly cuts to more easily view what is happening inside an assembly model?  The new View Manager section functionality now does that for you.  (Wildfire 2.0)

	Figure 1.  Crosshatch

You can find the functionality at View > View Manager > then, at the dialog box, choose the Xsec tab.  For purposes of illustration, a simple cross section was created and is displayed in the included images.

Figure 1 shows the assembly model with the simple cross section in a typical crosshatched display.  This is done by selecting Visibility in either the Display menu or the Right Mouse menu.  An eye icon shows up in the View Manager > Xsec window to indicate that section visibility has been set.

A nice functionality addition for this tool is the crosshatching persistence -- even when the dialog window is closed -- even through regeneration.  The down side:  You must deliberately go into View Manager again to turn it off -- and that command is only available by selecting the section name and using the Right Mouse button menu > Unset Visibility.

	Figure 2.  Cut Section
	Figure 3.  Highlighted Components

To display a more explicit cross section, select the desired section name in the View Manager > Xsec list, then use the Display menu to select > Set Active.  In our example, this clips the model to look like Figure 2.  You can choose which side displays with Display > Flip, and the graphics are much better than the old CLIP functionality.

The clipped section is a very convenient way to work because it is also persistent.  As shown in Figure 3, the internal components are still there, and selectable, they are just clipped to the section.  You can even select features to modify that are technically clipped away. To get this to go away, you have to activate the No Cross Section item in the View Manager list.  (Red arrow pointing to the No Cross Section item.)

The User Interface of the new View > View Manager is not very intuitive, but if you take a few minutes to play you can figure it out.  Try the options and see what they do.

Note:  This Tip references Wildfire 2.0 functionality.  (I am not sure if it is in Wildfire or not.  I avoid using Wildfire because it is so bad.)

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