Measure tool improvement - virtual ruler

[stephenrottloff7259]

I would like to request to have an option for a virtual ruler appear within an assembly, part or an IDW.  I find myself moving assemblies or parts off to the ends of my screen to quickly double check if surfaces are coplanar, or for checking if features have draft applied, or if drawing views or annotation balloons are lined up etc. etc..  It would be cool for this type of a reference could be available without it adding any geometry or model tree entries.  When you are done "checking", it would just disappear.  Maybe it can be integrated within the new 2018 measure tool.

Thank you,
Stephen R.

[Anonymous]

If im reading this right. you talking about something similar to what SolidWorks does with adding reference dims in part/assembly files that stay there until you want to delete it. Its an awesome function that SolidWorks has and it was a disappointment when i moved companies and started using inventor w/o it. I would love to see this added too! It saves a lot of time.

[Cadkunde.nl]

I think he wants something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zblW_Be1ies&feature=youtu.be

[Anonymous]

That might be beneficial in the drawing aspect that he was talking about but that type of ruler I don't think would work well in modeling areas. When you rotate the part I think it wouldn't consistently line up with things.

@stephenrottloff7259 have you seen the SolidWorks reference dimensions in the assemblies before? It allows you to dim to anything as a reference just like inventor does in a sketch except you don't have to make a sketch every time.

[stephenrottloff7259]

I have not seen what Solidworks offers for this functionality.  My request stems from looking at many parts and assemblies and just wanting quick answers to draft, coplanar and other geometric relationships.  I have not investigated Solidworks because we use Inventor and I really like Inventor.  I guess not having a visual for what I am after does not help,  Maybe I will put something together to illustrate.  One other workflow detail that I wanted to mention, is when looking at parts and assemblies from a standard view, like top, left or right etc, that is when I notice needing this type of reference.  My thought was to mimic having a physical ruler, one that could be made larger or smaller, to use on the screen as a type of reference between 2 surfaces or features that are not close together but need to have a certain relationship.

Thank you,

Stephen R.

[Anonymous]

This seems about like what your asking for to me.

As you change different features those reference dims will change and then you just delete it when you don't need it anymore. Its not in a drawing or anything just in the part.

[stephenrottloff7259]

This is what I had in mind.  I have the ruler modeled as an ipt and is useful, but would be more useful if it were intelligent, like having the ability to snap to geometry, dynamically increase or decrease in size depending on what size geometry is being worked with etc..

I think this type of tool would not be very useful at small distances.  The further geometry is apart, the more magnified any misalignment is just because of the distance.  But this type of tool would allow me to not have to use the edges of my screen to check alignments.

[Cadkunde.nl]

You can use a banana for scale 🙂

https://grabcad.com/library/banana-for-scale-1

[stephenrottloff7259]

If what I was designing was a banana sculpture or banana processing machine, then yes, that model would be very helpful : )

[jtylerbc]

Why wouldn't you just measure between the two faces, instead of trying to line up a virtual straightedge?  Any angle result other than exactly 0 (or 180, depending on orientation) would mean that your parts aren't aligned.  Any distance result other than exactly 0 would mean they aren't coplanar.

Having a virtual ruler displayed for scale I could maybe understand.  Using one as described here isn't really clicking with me.  It seems like the existing tools are already more accurate (and probably faster), even if you're still using an older version with the old Measure tools like I am.

[Anonymous]

That is why I was thinking he was originally talking about something similar to what I showed earlier. I think being able to actually have reference dims show while being able to place them outside of a sketch would be nice. However the idea of using a banana does sound promising.

[kentY3XBZ]

How about increased measuring capability in general?  Back in a previous life I used (Unix based) SDRC-IDeas for about 12 years ('94-'06) and this package was WAY ahead of it's time in many respects (and it's capabilities STILL exceed many of today's packages, including Inventor).  One of the things it did very well was measuring in that you were not constrained to obvious visible geometry for your measuring points.  For instance (and this will be weird to describe in words) you could get exotic and do something like this all in one easily cascading command:

Measure from a point thirty percent of the way from halfway between this intersection and 7.5 degrees about this circle to a point 3 inches above this plane that intersects this plane and this line.

In other words, you did not need to set up planes and points prior to measuring non-obvious places in space.  My description does not do it justice, but it WAS a MUCH more powerful tool than the current Inventor measuring tool.  There have been many times where I've taken my part or assembly into drafting simply to be able to easily measure what I wanted and (from experience) THAT does not need to be the case.