Sometimes we need to create a plane cut in SOLIDWORKS, but we only have information for three points of the plane. You can make this happen easily with surface cuts.

The Cut With Surface feature cuts a solid model by removing material with a surface or plane. There is no sketch needed. With multi-body parts, you can select which bodies to keep. It is a great tool for solving our problem.

Here’s how you do it. We start by defining a reference plane via the three known points or any other applicable references. In this case, two vertices and a sketch point:

Now that we have a plane, we can use it to define the cut with surface feature (Surfaces Command Manager or Insert > Cut > With Feature).

And that’s all there is to it. A sketchless cut!

Eager for more SOLIDWORKS tutorials?  Check out our Video Tech Tip on Sketching Techniques Every Engineer Should Know in SOLIDWORKS.