9.5.2

548 • CHAPTER 10
STRUCTURE MENU • 549
Attribute manager settings
Constrain Angle
Perhaps you would like to be able to draw the cross sections only in certain directions, rather than
free-form. To snap the cross-section to particular directions as you draw it, dene a Constrain Angle
and hold down the Shift key while you drag.
The value you enter in Constrain Angle is used to dene the direction of the cross section, starting
east (to the right) in the current view and working anti-clockwise. So, if you entered a value of 80
for Constrain Angle, you would be able to draw cross sections at 0, 80, 160, 240 and 320 as shown
in the diagram above. Remember to hold down Shift while you create the cross section, if you want
to constrain the direction.
Disconnect
This command enables you to disconnect polygons or points from the selected object. Select some
polygons and choose Disconnect to see the results. The separated surfaces will still be at the same
position, but physically they are no longer connected to the object. The original object still contains
the points of these separated surfaces, so the geometry is not destroyed. This tool normally needs a
selection of polygons and polygon mode enabled. A good example of using Disconnect would be to
cut a hole into an object and keep the disconnected surface to use as a cap.
This tool can also be applied to splines. In contrast to the Break Segment tool, the start and end
points of the disconnected segment are duplicated (as is the case with polygon objects) and are not
deleted from the original spline. Thus the order of the spline remains intact both before and after
disconnection. When using Disconnect on splines, a selection of points and point mode are needed.