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ArchiCAD provides selective trimming techniques to help the editing of Roofs and Shells. When
we have a trimming situation where the default method would not give us our desired result,
we can have more control over how the trimming operation is performed.
In such a case we can select the element to be trimmed and issue the Trim Element to Roof
or Shell command from the context menu.
We can now specify the trimming element by clicking on it. The cursor changes to a Roof
shape and it will give feedback when an eligible element has been found.
By default it displays an empty roof shape… but when we move our cursor over a Roof or
Shell, it changes to a full roof shape, signaling that a possible trimming element has been
found.
By clicking we can accept that Roof or Shell to be the trimming element.
At this point a so-called Trimming body is displayed in red color. The Trimming Body
is covered in more detail in other intelligent connection videos.
By moving our cursor we can determine whether the part of the trimmed element above or below
the trimming element should remain. The pre-selection highlight shows the part which will remain
after the click depending on the current position of the cursor.
If we now click above the Roof the upper portion of the trimmed Wall will remain.
Another way of specifying which portion of an element should be trimmed is by holding
down the Control or Command key on the keyboard. Now we are in hatchet mode as the cursor shape
shows.
This works the opposite way: with our click we specify which portion of the trimmed element
should be removed. Again, the pre-selection highlight shows which part of the trimmed
element will remain.
So we Control or Command click the upper part of the Wall and as the pre-selection highlight
shows, the part of the Wall below the Shell will remain.
The command can be performed on the Floor Plan as well. However, this has limited usability
in case of orthogonal elements such as a vertical Wall.
The Wall is found but since we do not see it in 3D it is not easy to specify which part
of it should remain. However, if we have a projected slanted Wall, we can see the projection of its sides and
we can specify whether it part above or below the Shell should remain.
In our example the portion of the Wall below the Shell was properly kept.