I find the tools in Inventor's Inspect > Measure panel very cumbersome, limited, and non-user friendly. I often have to escape out of the command between every measurement to be sure it will operate properly. I cannot measure any distance involving a round surface, such as the tangential distance to a circumference. I cannot see a history of previous measurements. I have to use round-about methods to measure certain features; for example, I have to click a random face before I can pick the center of a circle as my first measuring point.
The ability to keep measurements displayed, almost like temporary 3D dimensions, for the purpose of active analysis of a component (as I was trying to do with my boss the other day) would be very useful; that way as I'm navigating around my part or assembly I can see in real-time the precise dimensions of features I care about rather than measuring and re-measuring as I'm trying to determine things about the model.
I'd love to hear of functionality that other users would like to see added for measuring and inspecting 3D models, and to see all of these implemented in future releases of Inventor as well as in service packs to current releases, so that all users can take advantage of this very foundational functionality.
(Please see related Discussion Groups post here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Better-measure-tool-in-Inventor/m-p/3841929)