vtkCutter

Section: Visualization Toolkit Graphics Classes

Usage

vtkCutter is a filter to cut through data using any subclass of vtkImplicitFunction. That is, a polygonal surface is created corresponding to the implicit function F(x,y,z) = value(s), where you can specify one or more values used to cut with.

In VTK, cutting means reducing a cell of dimension N to a cut surface of dimension N-1. For example, a tetrahedron when cut by a plane (i.e., vtkPlane implicit function) will generate triangles. (In comparison, clipping takes a N dimensional cell and creates N dimension primitives.)

vtkCutter is generally used to "slice-through" a dataset, generating a surface that can be visualized. It is also possible to use vtkCutter to do a form of volume rendering. vtkCutter does this by generating multiple cut surfaces (usually planes) which are ordered (and rendered) from back-to-front. The surfaces are set translucent to give a volumetric rendering effect.

Note that data can be cut using either 1) the scalar values associated with the dataset or 2) an implicit function associated with this class. By default, if an implicit function is set it is used to clip the data set, otherwise the dataset scalars are used to perform the clipping.

To create an instance of class vtkCutter, simply invoke its constructor as follows

  obj = vtkCutter

Methods

The class vtkCutter has several methods that can be used. They are listed below. Note that the documentation is translated automatically from the VTK sources, and may not be completely intelligible. When in doubt, consult the VTK website. In the methods listed below, obj is an instance of the vtkCutter class.