Clipping through stl file of porous material

Question

I've an .stl file of a cube of a porous material. The material is basically many overlapping spheres. Since I imported it as an .stl file, it is one object to blender.

I want to have an animation, that clips through the material. Can anyone help?

I tried using outside lamps and camera clip, but then the inside is not illuminated. Also, once a sphere is "cut open" by the clipping, you can see through it. I don't want that. Solidify doesn't do the job, because the spheres have different radi.

I also tried using a mixed shader with emission/diffuse and light path, so the spheres would illumiate each other, but that doesn't work, because the whole strucutre is one object to blender.

@FStruck can you post a picture of your object? I'm having a hard time visualizing what you are working with. I assume you are using cycles? — David, Jun 08 '17 at 14:09
@David just added a picture. I'll use whatever render engine will give me the desired results. I tried it with cycles so far. — FStruck, Jun 08 '17 at 14:18
@David yes. But it doesn't work for my structure. It will be pitch black inside. I guess that is because there are no lights, that illuminate the inside of the cube. — FStruck, Jun 08 '17 at 14:28

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '17 at 15:44

You will want to use a boolean modifier. Start by adding a cube that overlaps with your object. Select your object, go to the modifiers tab, and add a boolean modifier. Set the target object to be your cube, and select 'difference' as your operation.

Before modifier:

After modifier:

In this screen shot I've set the cube draw type to wire so you can see what the modifier does. You could simply move the cube to a different layer.

Clipping through stl file of porous material

1 Answers1