Selecting centers for measure

[kjellhar]

Hi, I'm having some issues with the Inspect tool which I hope you can help me with.

Most of the time when I want to measure somethin, I want to find the distance between some features. So if I select the endpoint of a line, and the another endpoint, all is good (but you could make XYZ visible by default, which I believe is suggested already in the Idea station). Ok, say I want to measure the distance between two holes, that also works. I just select the to circles, and the Inspect tool gives me the distance from center to center. This is just what I show in the first part of the little screencast below. But if I want to measure how far a circle is from an edge, I cant select the center of the circle. See the last part of the screencast. Now I will only measure the shortest distance between the circumference of the hole and the edge.

http://autode.sk/1G9kEVj

So, if this is not possible now, there should be some way to control whether you select the center or the circumference. Also, there should be a way to get a certex on the center of a line, and possibly some other features that I can't think of right now.

Thanks,

Kjell

[gwcude]

You should be able to left-click (Windows) and hold down on the mouse button to get a selection dialog to pick which feature to use for your measure.

[kjellhar]

That's a good one, which I didn't know of. It works the same on my Mac, but when I try this on a hole, I get all kinds of selections except center. Also, I get no center point on a straight line.

Kjell

[gwcude]

I went back and played with the selections and if I'm not selecting from a Sketched "hole" feature that was extruded/cut, but rather created a hole from the Create tab, I see what you are saying about not having a center point to select. Looks like a good IdeaStation request.

[kjellhar]

Ok, I just wanted to ask if there was a way that I didn't know of.

I just posted it in the Idea station.

Kjell

[Anonymous]

Hi Kjell,

Regarding the center of a hole, although a little extra step you can under the Construction button choose "Axis through Cylinder/Cone/Torous".  This axis you make can then be measured to, as shown below:

 

[Anonymous]

Regarding the centerpoint of a line, are you wanting to measure from the centerpoint of the edge of a body?  As far as I know, best way to do this is create a sketch on one of the faces, then create a sketch point, and it will snap to center of desired body edge (and automatically project that edge as line into sketch, as indicated by purple points seen in image below). 

Let me know if you want me to illustrate this.

Hope that helps a little 🙂

Jesse

[Oceanconcepts]

This is in fact a request I submitted to the idea station back in mid 2013, still showing as comments requested:

 http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-request-a/improvements-to-the-measure-tool/idi-...

I agree, obviously. I often need to measure from the center of a circular feature to some other point, rarely from the edge. It’s possible to do if you add construction lines or create a sketch, but it should be a simple two click operation and not clutter the interface with otherwise unnecessary elements. My feeling is that at least the same snaps available when creating joints should be available in the Measure tool. Midpoint of an edge, for instance, would be very useful. 

[kjellhar]

jjurban55,

That trick with the axis through center was at least a good workaround. Too bad you need to clutter the drawing just to do a simple measurement. Not to mention all the extra mouse clicks jsut to do such a simple thing.

Oceanconcepts,

I didn't find your suggestion when I searched. Should have looked closer. 

I totally agree, the join tool already selects all those features. There should be no reason why it couldn't be done with measure as well.

Krell

[nocheinerunde]

I guess selecting a center for measure ist still missing for bodies?

When "show snap points" is activated the center mark of a hole will

definately popp up for a fraction of a second with all other snap points when you hover

with the mouse arrow over the body. But the center point can never be selected individually

whereas all other snap points can be selected.

What is so strange (and a bit ridicilous as well) that I can easyly select / pick  the

center of a hole when attemting to do another hole or when designing a body.

So my time-consuming workaround is to make make a box over a hole and use it´s edge for mesuring.

[laughingcreek]

I don't know about for bodies, but if you want to snap to the triangle showing the center of a cylinder,  when your hovering over the cylinder wall and the triangle shoes up, hold down the ctrl key, then you can move to the triangle and select it.