
	Chained Slices

Chained slices are a special case of drawn slices. They allow you to slice along features in the mesh.

Change your view of the mesh so you get a good view of where you want to start the chain. It's easy to change view while drawing the chain, so you don't have to worry about seeing everything at the start.

Select Draw and you are ready to draw the first link in the chain. Hold down the right mouse button while you drag out a line. Let go of the mouse button and the first link is cut into the mesh.

NOTE for users with 2 button mice: hold down the <Shift> key to turn your second (middle) mouse button into a third (right) mouse button.

Figure 256. Drawing Links

The mouse pointer then changes to a "+". To add another link, move the mouse pointer to where you want the new link to end and click the right mouse button once. Alternatively, you can hold down the right mouse button and drag the mouse around to see where the link will be cut. You can add a third and more links in the same way (see Figure 256).

You can change your view of the mesh at any stage. Just select View, position the new view, then select Draw to continue drawing links.

To complete the chain, click the left mouse button once. The mouse pointer changes back to an arrow and you are then ready to change view to see how the chain looks (see Figure 257).

Figure 257. Chained Slices

Mesh Normals

It's important that your mesh normals are correct because chained slices don't cut all the way through; only the visible faces facing you are sliced. The reason why chained slices are restricted in this way is because you normally use them to trace a particular feature, and aren't interested in slicing everything behind as well.

Figure 258. Mesh Normals

The inside of the mesh is shaded with a blue tint. If your mesh is inside out then the outside will look blue when it's shaded (see Figure 258). Just type <r> to flip the normals, and the chained slicing will work correctly.

Snapping To Slices

When starting a new chain, you can snap to the end of an existing chain or slice. Position the mouse pointer over the slice you want to attach to, and then hold down the right mouse button and drag out the first link in the chain as you normally would.

You can also snap the end of a new link to the beginning of an existing chain or slice. Just move the mouse pointer over the slice you want to attach to while you click and drag out the end of new link. If you do attach a link in this way, then the new chain is considered to be complete.

You can easily join one slice or chain to another. Simply create a new chain, snap the start to the end of the first slice, drag out the first link and snap that to the beginning of the second slice.