Slice

Slice cuts whole bodies apart — with flat planes/faces, or with sketch lines that laser-cut through a body along their path.

How to use it

1. Pick the Slice tool and click one or more bodies (the Bodies picker).
2. Click the Cutters picker, then pick:
   • a construction plane or flat body face, or
   • a sketch line (straight or curved) on a face — cuts through the body like a laser following that path. Multiple lines each cut.
3. Press Enter.

Each target is cut independently. Each cutter divides whatever pieces the previous cuts produced — two crossing planes (or lines) through a block give four fragments.

Infinite cut (on by default) extends every plane endlessly and expands every line past its endpoints so a short path still severs the solid. Off, a finite face carves only its own footprint and a line only cuts within its span. Construction planes are always infinite.

What you get

Each fragment is a new body nested under the slice element. The input body lives on as a shadow body — hidden until you hover or select it. A cutter that misses a body leaves it whole.

Edit slice re-opens the pickers; deleting the slice restores the input body.

Help

Scripting

bearcad.slice{ bodies = {0}, cutters = {{ kind = "construction_plane", index = 1 }} }
bearcad.slice{ bodies = {0}, cutters = {{ kind = "line", index = 4 }} }
bearcad.slice{ bodies = {0, 1},
               cutters = {{ kind = "construction_plane", index = 1 }},
               extend = false, name = "Split" }
bearcad.edit_slice{ index = 0, bodies = {0},
                    cutters = {{ kind = "construction_plane", index = 2 }} }

A planar cutter is a face-spec table (same shape bearcad.begin_sketch accepts). A line cutter is { kind = "line", index = i }.

Slicing sketch geometry in 2D

Split lines where other lines cross them. The sliced line becomes a shadow — no longer part of any face, but still editable — and each crossing produces a fragment line. From scripts:

-- Split line 0 wherever line 1 crosses it, in sketch 0:
bearcad.slice_sketch{ sketch = 0, lines = {0}, cutters = {1} }

-- Slice several targets with several cutters at once, then re-point:
bearcad.slice_sketch{ sketch = 0, lines = {0, 2}, cutters = {1, 3} }
bearcad.edit_sketch_slice{ index = 0, lines = {0}, cutters = {1} }

-- Circles and curves slice too — a line through circle 0 splits it into arcs:
bearcad.slice_sketch{ sketch = 0, circles = {0}, cutters = {1} }

Bezier targets stay curved when split; a sliced circle becomes arcs. A shadowed original no longer forms a face — its fragments do, so they extrude independently.