The command bar options vary depending upon whether you are measuring in a 3D model document or in a drawing. To learn about the differences between measuring in a model and measuring on a drawing, see the Distance and area measurement help topic.

Activate Part

In assembly models, activates inactive parts to measure to. To activate the part, select the Activate button and then select the part.

Element Types

Specifies the type of elements you want to locate in the model, such as curves, surfaces, or space points. The default is All elements.

Use this option to reduce the set of selectable elements. For example, if you select Keypoints from the Element Types list, then you can click the Keypoint option on the command bar and then specify an exact type of keypoint to locate.

Keypoint

In a model, specifies the type of keypoint to select for measuring, such as midpoints, silhouette points, or end points.

Coordinate System

Selects a user-defined coordinate system that you want to measure relative to. When you specify a user-defined coordinate system, the delta distances you measure are relative to the x, y, and z coordinates of the coordinate system you specified. If there are no user-defined coordinate systems, this option is not available.

Common Origin Measurement

When set, specifies that each element you select is measured from the same origin point. The origin point is the first element you select.

When cleared, the measurement value displayed in the Measure Distance dialog box changes to display the sum of the distances of all elements selected.

Measurement Variable

Creates a measurement variable in the variable table. A measurement variable is a driven variable whose value is derived from the distance or angle between two keypoints or elements.

You can use a measurement variable to drive another variable whose value is dependent on the measurement variable. For example, you can create a measurement variable that tracks the normal distance between two part faces in an assembly. You can then use the measurement variable to drive the thickness of another part in the assembly. If the normal distance between the two parts changes, the thickness of the other part also changes.

Use Drawing View Scale

Specifies that measurements within a drawing view or between 2D geometry and a drawing view are displayed using the scale of the model geometry within the view. Applying the drawing view scale is equivalent to returning the model distance.

Drawing views must have the same orientation and rotation for you to measure between them.

The inverse scale of the first drawing view you select is used to calculate the value.

Scale

Applies and displays a user-defined scale value. The inverse of the selected scale is used to calculate the returned values.

Note:

Scale values are defined in the Drawing View Scales section of the Custom.xml file, in the Solid Edge Program folder. See the Help topic, Add custom drawing view scales to Solid Edge.

Reset

Resets the command to its original state. In a model, this clears the values in the Measure Distance data window.

Close

Closes the Measure Distance data window and restarts the command.