Measuring Items

You can measure items such as the position of a point, the length of a curve or a line, the radius of a circle, or the volume of a part. You can also measure the distance between items such as the minimum distance between two surfaces, or the angle between a line and a plane.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
About Measurements
Customizing Measurements

Measure Items

You can measure various things such as the position, length, area, or volume of an item.

  1. From the Tools section of the action bar, click Measure .
    A filter bar appears.
  2. Optional: To customize your measure, choose from the options available in the filter bar.

    Filters let you filter the geometry to select. For example, if you select the Line/Curve filter, you can select only lines.

    OptionDescription
    Point

    Displays the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the selected point. You can select only points (either an existing point on the model, or any point you click on the model).

    Center/Point

    Displays the coordinates of the center point of a circle or a sphere. You can select only center points.

    Canonic geometries Displays the measurements for all canonical geometries such as point, line, circle, arc, plane, cone, cylinder, and sphere.
    Product

    Displays the volume of the selected product or part (as if contained in a bounding box). You can select only whole products or whole parts. A level selector is available to select sub-parts or sub-products at a specific level of the root product.

    Notes:
    • Point and Product are exclusive options that cannot be combined (only cumulative options can be combined). All other options are cumulative options that can be combined.
    • The options you select are preserved for next time you launch the Measure command.
    • When you select an exclusive option, the previously-selected cumulative options remain highlighted but are not active. If you then deactivate the exclusive option, the previously-selected cumulative options are active again.
    • Curves and surfaces can be selected without selecting any of the filter options.

  3. Click the item you want to measure.

    Click-able items are highlighted when you hover over them, based on the options selected in the filter bar.



  4. Optional: To measure another item, click Repeat , and select the item. This removes the previous measurement.
  5. Click OK to validate the measurement.
    The last-created measurement remains displayed. You can drag it to another position. You can also customize its appearance using the context toolbar that appears when you select the measurement.

Measure Between Items

You can measure the distance or the angle between two items, and, optionally, you can make special measurements, such as chain, stack, angle by three points, and circle by three points.

  1. From the Tools section of the action bar, click Measure .
  2. Optional: To customize your measure, choose from the options available in the filter bar.

    For more on these options, see Measure Items.

  3. Click the first, and then the second item between which you want to measure.

    The measurement is created and additional options appear.



  4. Optional: Choose from the options available (this depends on the options you chose in the filter bar, and on the number and type of items you clicked in the previous step).
    OptionDescription
    Chain measures

    Displays the distance between A B, then between B and C, then between C and D, etc.

    Stack measures

    Displays the distance between A and B, and between A and C, and between A and D, etc.

    Measure 3 Points

    Displays the value of the angle made by three selected points, or the radius/diameter of the circle passing through the selected points.

    Note: This option is available only if three points are selected.

  5. Optional: If you have chosen any of the options in the previous step, click the third item (C) to continue the measurement.
  6. Optional: If you chose Chain measures or Stack measures, click C, then D, then E, etc. as required.

    Note: The behavior of previously created measures depends on the state of Keep previous measures.

    By default, Keep previous measures is active, and previous measures are kept when creating a new one.

    To remove the previous measure (that is, the last-created one) every time that you create a measure, switch Keep previous measures off. Note that this only impacts measures created after switching the option off (that is, all existing measures are kept).

    You can turn Keep previous measures on or off when the icon appears. Once you modify the state of Keep previous measures, it is kept for the length of the session.

    The Keep previous measures option must be off to measure the angle and arc using three points selection.

  7. Click OK to validate the measurement.
    The last-created measurement remains displayed. You can drag it to another position. You can also customize its appearance using the context toolbar that appears when you select the measurement.