Slice objects are used to temporarily suppress part of a scene's display to reveal hidden content. Slice objects can be applied to any content in the scene to see inside buildings, explore stacked volumes, and iteratively push through subsurface geology.
Note:
Voxel layers and Gaussian splat layers cannot be sliced with this tool. Voxel layers have dedicated slicing capabilities.
The slicing shape can be either a plane or a volumetric shape. Planes act like walls that can be positioned, rotated, and expanded in the scene. By default, planes hide the content in the direction toward the camera, but the direction can be set to forward or backward. Volumetric shapes—boxes, cylinders, and spheres—can also be used to define spaces where content is visually suppressed. By default, volumetric shapes hide content from the inside, but they can be configured to hide content outside instead. You can use multiple slicing objects in a single scene to achieve more advanced displays.
Note:
Each interactive slice object consumes part of your analytical tool display budget. Once the display budget has been exceeded, you must remove one or more of the existing interactive slice objects before you can create another.
The displays created using slices are temporary, are not saved with the project, and are not included in map packages. You can, however, export their definitions as point feature classes in the projects default geodatabase for further use.
Create an interactive slice object
To create an interactive slice object in a scene, on the Analysis tab, in the Workflows group, open the Exploratory 3D Analysis menu and click Slice 
. This opens the Exploratory Analysis pane and activates the Interactive Plane slice tool. See the following sections to understand the creation methods available in the tool.
Creation methods
The five methods for creating an interactive slice are described in the following table:
| Creation method | Description |
|---|---|
Interactive Plane | Click in the scene to place one side of the slicing plane. Click again to set the orientation and width. This is the default method. The planes are generated as horizontal or vertical based on creation settings in the Exploratory Analysis pane. This creation method is well suited for general exploratory slicing within a scene, such as pushing vertically down through a building, or pushing horizontally through a geological structure. Note:Interactive Plane is compatible with snapping. Enable snapping in the scene for more precise placement. For example, vertex or edge snapping allows you to snap to the edge or corner of a building. |
Plane From Feature | Click a feature in the scene to create an oriented slice object based on its extent. This method is well suited for slicing through specific containing features such as extruded polygons or multipatch building shells. |
Plane From Camera | Create a slice object using the current camera's viewpoint. This method is well suited for creating distance-based slices from an important viewpoint—for example, on top of a building. The slice that is created is aligned to the tilt and heading of the camera, and you use a depth slider to push or pull the slice along the current view vector. |
Interactive Volume | Click in the scene to position the anchor point of the slicing volume. Click again to set the orientation and size using one of the predetermined shapes: box, sphere, or cylinder. This method is well suited for clipping out a volumetric space in the scene, for example, clipping away one wing of a building (using the box shape), a 3D radius around an explosion point (using the sphere), or features along a railway line (using the cylinder). |
From Layer | Automatically generate slicing planes and volumes based on a point layer where feature attributes populate parameters such as the applicable shape type and associated construction parameters. This method is well suited for reloading previously exported slice objects that have been converted to features, so you can pick up where you left off. |
Update an interactive slice object
To update the analysis area of an existing slice object, it must be selected. Click the control point with the Slice tool and use the interactive handles to adjust the location and position. You can move the objects in the x- and y-space, drag the green arrow to move in the z-space, rotate the green outer ring to manipulate the heading value, rotate the red vertical ring to update the plane's tilt angle, or reposition the blue spheres to adjust the overall size of the slice. Layers that are either hidden or revealed in the scene dynamically update as changes are made.
To modify the properties of an individual slice plane, it must first be selected. You can select a slice plane by clicking any of the midpoints along the plane edges. You can also use the options in the navigation box at the top of the Properties tab:
Select Next
—Cycle the selection forward through
the existing slice planes in the scene. When the slice is
selected, you can update its properties, including size and position values, culling direction, colors, and affected layers.Select Previous
—Cycle the selection in reverse order through
the existing slice planes.- Delete
—Delete the selected slice plane from the scene, and the next slice plane is selected if it exists.
Clear a selection by clicking away from the lines of sight in the scene, ensuring the creation method tool is still active.
Update using the selection handles
When you select a slice plane, interactive handles display, allowing you to directly manipulate the aspects of the object. You can do the following to the properties:
- Drag the inner circle to move the plane to a new location, updating the x-, y-, and z-values.
- Rotate the green outer ring to manipulate the heading value.
- Rotate the red vertical ring to update the plane's tilt angle.
- Drag the green arrow handle to change the elevation (z-value) for the plane.
- Drag a midpoint anchor on the plane edges to update the width and height.
Note:
The slice plane honors below ground navigation for the scene. Therefore, to move control points below the ground elevation surface, you must enable this capability. Select the elevation surface in the Contents pane, and on the Elevation Surface Layer tab in the Surface group, check the Navigate Underground option. This property applies a 2-meter offset from the ground to ensure the point remains above ground when the scene changes the ground surface level of detail.
Update using the Properties tab
Use the Properties tab in the Exploratory Analysis pane to iteratively select through your analysis objects, type any necessary modifications, or, optionally, click Delete to remove an object. To clear a selection, you must click away from the object in the scene.
The slice properties you can update are as follows:
- Rotation values for heading and tilt.
- Dimension values for width and height, with a choice of units.
- Culling direction to hide either what is in front or what is behind the slice plane. Volumes can cull everything inside the slice frame, or everything outside the slice frame.
Global properties
Global properties affect the appearance of all existing and future slice planes. Expand the Global Properties heading to modify the wireframe color for the slice plane, as well as the cut outline indicating where a slice cuts through an object or surface. Click the Show edit overlay option to add a control to the scene that dynamically updates values as you modify the shape of the selected interactive slice object. You can also directly type each of the handle values. At any time, the Restore Defaults button can be used to return all global properties to their default values.
The global properties of an interactive slice object are described in the following table:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
Wireframe Color | The color of the wireframe overlay of the interactive slice object. |
Cut outline | The color of the line that indicates where a slice plane cuts through an object. |
Define affected layers
By default, all visible layers are sliced. Layers can be excluded by expanding the Affected Layers heading and unchecking the layer. Search for a layer by name, set a filter to control the results, or sort the list to choose which content is culled from the scene and which content remains visible. For example, you can view the plumbing infrastructure inside a building as you interactively slice away the floors and walls. These settings apply to all slices, but only the active scene is immediately refreshed.
Delete an interactive slice object
You can delete a slice object from a scene by selecting the control point with the active slice tool. Then, in the Exploratory Analysis pane, on the Properties tab, click Delete .
To delete all slice objects at once, as well as any other exploratory analysis objects, open the Exploratory 3D Analysis menu in the Workflows group on the Analysis tab, and click Clear All .