Clipping planes allow to create cross-section views of presentations.

Salome features two distinct types of clipping planes: Global and Local.

Global Clipping Planes are defined in the VTK viewer and can be automatically applied to all Post-Pro presentations shown in the viewer (or not applied depending on the user's choice).
Local Clipping Planes are defined directly for the given presentation

To define Global Clipping Planes in the Main Menu select View -> Windows -> Clipping Planes.

The following dialog will appear as a dockable window.

The list of Presentations allows choosing for display from all presentations currently created or loaded in the study. The list of Associated planes contains all global planes created by the user.

The checkbox near the name of the plane defines the plane as global.
The checkbox Active makes the Plane active (used together with Show planes preview, Deactivate planes and Auto Apply buttons).

New and Edit buttons call the dialog for creation and modification of clipping planes.

Name of the plane - allows to input the custom name of the plane (Plane n) by default
Origin - allows to define the point of origin of the clipping plane.
Direction - allows to define the direction of the plane in relation to the coordinate planes OX OY and OZ, from 0 - parallel to the plane to 1 - perpendicular to the plane.
Global checkbox - allows to make the created plane global by default, i.e. the the checkbox near the name of the plane will be always checked, otherwise the created presentation is local, yet it is possible to check the respective checkbox and make it global.

Delete button removes the selected plane from the list of planes.

Show planes preview checkbox displays active planes in the Viewer. Deactivate planes checkbox - if checked, unchecks Active checkboxes for all planes, revealing the entire presentation. Auto Apply checkbox - automatically hides from view the part of object truncated by the newly created plane.

Note that the clipping planes defined in this way depend on the whole MED object and are stored in the dedicated Object Browser folder.

The described functionality allows to create both local and global clipping planes, however, there is another way to create local clipping planes, depending on the presentations.

To create a local clipping plane on a presentation, select the presentation in the viewer or in the Object Browser, right-click on it and select Clipping plane from the context menu.

Click on the New button. A new clipping plane will be immediately displayed in 3D Viewer. You can create as many clipping planes as you need. To delete an unwanted plane, select it in the list of planes and click Delete button.

Now you can define the parameters of your cross-section. You can define them either in Non Structured or in IJK (Structured) way.

Non Structured mode allows to select the clipping plane by adjusting the following parameters:

Orientation - allows to choose horizontal (X-Y) or vertical (Y-Z and Z-X) orientation of the clipping plane;
Distance is defined between the opposite extremities of the object (if it is set to 0.5 the object is split in two halves);
Rotation (in angle degrees) allows to rotate the clipping plane about the axes defining the orientation plane.
Show preview - displays the clipping plane in the 3D Viewer.
Auto Apply - automatically hides from view the part of object truncated by the plane.

In the IJK (Structured) mode the clipping plane will be oriented completely perpendicular to one of the selectable Axes.

Index gives the choice of several possible positions of the plane.
Reverse normal - allows to select which part of the object should be truncated.
Show preview - displays the clipping plane in the 3D Viewer.
Auto Apply - automatically hides from view the part of object truncated by the plane.