Measuring Geometric Properties

Measures let you provide geometric information about objects.

Before you begin:

The task below assumes that the created measure will be persistent.

In a context in which non-persistent measures are taken, the measure is not added in the tree. Furthermore, when clicking OK in the Measure Item or Measure Between dialog box, the measure disappears.

  1. From the Review section of the action bar, click Measure Item .
    Several things now happen:

    • The arrow pointer changes to the measure pointer . Depending on the position of the measure pointer, it will also show a symbol indicating the object you can select with it. For a list of all the measure pointers, see Pointer Transformation.

    • The Measure Item dialog box appears with the Specifications tab activated and Customize tab unavailable.

  2. In the Specifications tab:
    1. Select a calculation mode.
    2. Select a geometric element to measure in the 3D area or the tree.
      To help you with your selection, the mask on the measure pointer changes according to the geometry type when you hover over a geometry. You can refine your selection by selecting the required geometry type in the Selection mode box. Some or all of the following selection modes may be available:
      • Any geometry
      • Picking point
      • Point only
      • Edge only
      • Surface only
      • Product only
      • Edge limits
      • Arc center
      • Angle by 3 points
  3. Move the measure pointer over the geometry.
    The symbol to the bottom right of the pointer changes to reflect the geometry type and to help you with your selection. Also, dynamic highlighting of geometric entities helps you locate the item to be selected.



  4. Optional: Select the Keep Only Last Measure check box to display the last measure in the work area.

    Notes:
    • This check box is only available for multiple measures and when the measure is non-persistent.
    • By default this check box is clear.

  5. Click when the pointer is above the object whose geometric properties you want to measure.

    Several things now happen:

    • The selected object is highlighted in the geometry and in the tree.

    • An information box appears, providing information about the properties of the selected geometry. Drag this box to move it. A full list of detectable objects is provided in Pointer Transformation.

    • A Measure item is created in the tree under the Notes branch with the name Measurexxxx.y where xxxx is the selected geometry type and y the number of measures made under the same slide and for the same type of geometry.

      Important:
      • The symbol appears when a measure is created in design mode.

        The symbol appears when the measure is not associated with the selection you made and will therefore not be affected by any modifications you make to the selection.

        The symbol appears with an associative Measure, if the linked geometry is not in design mode.

      • To rename the Measure, right-click it and change the name in the Properties dialog box.
  6. Using the same method as just described, select several geometric entities.
    Important:
    • You cannot multiselect entities of different types. After your first selection, you will only be able to select a similar entity. The symbol appears in those areas where no selection is possible.
    • With the Multiple Measure mode you can create several measurements independently of each other without clicking the measure-t-Measure-MeasureItem. several times . Each click on a measurable element will create a new Item measurement.
    • Note that whereas for a single selection the information box is directly attached by an arrow to the selected entity, for a multiselection it is attached to the intersection of the dashed lines coming from the center of each selected entity.

    After the second selection, the contents of the Selection field change to show only the number of selected entities.

  7. To see a detailed list of your selections, click the button to the right of the Selection box.
    The Measure Selections dialog box appears.
  8. To remove any selections in the list, select the unwanted line(s) and click Remove. You can also do this by reclicking the selected entity in the geometry.

    Note that you cannot remove all selections.

    At each selection (or selection removal), the related information changes interactively in the More Results>> section.

    This information also appears in the information box.

    The corresponding measures are added under the Notes item in the tree.

  9. Click OK.
  10. To edit an existing measure, you have three options:

    • Double-click the measure in the tree.

    • Double-click the information box in the geometry

    • Right-click the measure in the tree and select [measure_name] object>Definition... .

    Once created in the tree, the selections of non-associative measures cannot be modified. If you click the button, a warning message appears: If you click Yes, all the selections will be removed from the list in the Measure Selections dialog box. You can now make new selections. If you click No, the selection list remains unchanged. Note that you can reopen any Measure to access the Customize tab and the Results section.

  11. Optional: Measure the area of a planar surface.
    1. From the Review section of the action bar, click Measure Item .
      The Measure Item dialog box appears.
    2. Select a planar surface.
      The 2nd Moment area is added in the dialog box with the following boxes:
      • IoxG: displays the moment of area of the surface about ox axis
      • IoyG: displays the moment of area of the surface about oy axis
      • IxyG: displays the product of moment of area of the surface about ox and oy axes
    3. Click OK.
      The result is visible in the work area and the measure values are displayed in the measure text box.

Important:

  • You can right-click the measure in the tree or in the geometry to access additional commands.

  • Associativity between a measure result and geometry created using the Create geometries command in V5 is not migrated.

  • Slides are self-sufficient. Associative measures may therefore have different values in different slides. Note that you cannot change selections. If you do, you will receive a warning message.

  • You can also measure geometric properties in the tree using the same procedure as described above.