Measure Utility
 
 
 
Command entry: Utilities panel Utilities rollout Measure button

The Measure utility provides measurements of a selected object or shape.

Procedures

To measure an object:

  1. On the Utilities panel, click the Measure button.
  2. Select the object you want to measure.

    If both an object and a shape are in the selection, information is displayed for both types. If several objects are in a selection, the sum of their measurements is displayed.

Interface

Text display

Displays the name of the object in the current selection. If more than one object is in the selection, Multiple Objects Selected is displayed.

Lock Selected

Prevents the displayed data from changing when you change selection. For example, you might need to select and manipulate another object that affects the currently selected object.

Objects group

Displays information about renderable mesh objects.

Surface Area

Displays the total surface area of all objects in the selection, in units squared.

Volume

Displays the total volume of all objects in the selection, in units cubed. Note that objects with "holes" caused by missing faces can result in inaccurate volume values. When an object has one or more holes, an asterisk appears beside the Volume number.

Center Of Mass

Displays the world coordinates of the location of the center of mass for the object or the center of mass of the selected objects.

Create Center Point

Creates a point helper object at the center of mass.

Shapes group

Displays information about shape objects.

Length

Displays the sum of the length of all splines in all selected shapes.

Dimensions group

Displays the dimensions of the object, as they appear in world space. For example, if it were a box with the created dimensions of 15 x 10 x 25, and that box were scaled 200 percent, then this group would report dimensions of 30 x 20 x 50.

Button set

New Floater

Launches a modeless Measure dialog that displays the same information found under the Objects, Shapes, and Dimensions groups on the Utilities panel. In addition, you can expand the dialog horizontally, in case the values are too long to be viewed in the default dialog size.

TipWhile the Measure floater is displayed, you can view the length of a spline while you're creating it.
Close

Closes the utility.

See Also