Slices

You can add slices to volume and surface zones in your plot in order to view X, Y, or Z planes within your data. With IJK-ordered data, you can also add slices on the I, J, or K planes. It is also possible to create slices with arbitrary orientations.

Slices can include lighting effects, contours, meshes, and more. To customize these and other attributes of slices, use the Slice Details dialog, accessible in the Plot sidebar or the Plot menu, or use the context menu and context toolbar.

The context toolbar appears above the context menu when you right-click a slice in your plot. This toolbar allows you to turn on or off the grid, contour, vector, shade, edge, and translucency layers for the selected slice(s). Additionally, you may adjust frequently-used style settings for each layer using the drop-down menu to the right of each, for example selecting a color for the grid (or choosing a variable by which to color it).

Tecplot 360 EX includes a simple interactive method for creating slices. Select the Slice tool  in the toolbar or in the Plot sidebar to activate a crosshair cursor, then click in a volume or surface zone to "drop" a slice into that zone. You can then drag the slice to change its position. Refer to “Slice Tool” on page 25 for more information on working with the Slice tool.

For additional control, additional slices, or another way to insert slices derived from the dataset, use the Definition page of the Slice Details dialog. You can open the Slice Details dialog by clicking the  button next to the Slices toggle in the Plot sidebar or by choosing Slices from the Plot menu.

Interactively created slices are derived from the dataset and are defined by a constant X, Y, or Z location (or constant I, J, or K indexes, for IJK ordered zones). Tecplot 360 EX considers this type of slice as part of your plot's style and does not add it to the dataset unless you extract it to a zone (using Data>Extract>Slices).