how to measure the diameter of imported shapes

[uwestoehr]

I got a STEP file and imported it to FC. The part has several cylinders and radii which I need to measure out of the file.

I had a brief look around but cannot find a way how to do this. The measure toolbar does not provide to measure radii/diameters. Also in the Wiki and by googling I could not find how I can achieve this.

[openBrain]

Does this NormandC's answer to a recent post help ?

[uwestoehr]

Does this NormandC's answer to a recent post help ?

No. The measurement toolbar doesn't allow me to measure diameters or I don't know how it is done.

[chrisb]

Have a look at the macros in the wiki.

[uwestoehr]

Have a look at the macros in the wiki.

Thanks, I found this macro: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Macro_MeasureCircle
This works, but for every part I have to measure a dozen radii in a row and with the macro I must execute dozen times
- menu Macro -> Macros
- select the macro
- press execute

Is there maybe a quicker way?

Maybe you beat me for this heretic question but why is such a base feature not part of FC's measure toolbar directly?

[chrisb]

Is there maybe a quicker way?

Don't stop searching, if you are not satisfied with the solution. Have a look at FCInfo.

Maybe you beat me for this heretic question but why is such a base feature not part of FC's measure toolbar directly?

Come on, you know the answer: Because it's not implemented yet. And it's not implemented for two reasons: First, there is no pull request from you, and second, other developers are busy doing other stuff than adding tooltips and organizing toolbars.

You can customize your own toolbar and call macros of your liking, e.g. the macro MeasureCircle.

[NormandC]

Do you understand how few people contribute to FreeCAD? Are you aware that the overwhelming majority of them is doing it for free in their spare time? We all wish for a complete set of measurement tools, but nobody has volunteered to do it.

[easyw-fc]

Thanks, I found this macro: https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Macro_MeasureCircle
This works, but for every part I have to measure a dozen radii in a row and with the macro I must execute dozen times
- menu Macro -> Macros
- select the macro
- press execute

Is there maybe a quicker way?

Maybe you beat me for this heretic question but why is such a base feature not part of FC's measure toolbar directly?

you may consider to use Manipulator WB
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Manipulator_Workbench
Caliper

[uwestoehr]

Do you understand how few people contribute to FreeCAD? Are you aware that the overwhelming majority of them is doing it for free in their spare time?

Don't be that harsh with me please. I am an open source developer too for about 15 years now (www.lyx.org). Moreover I already contributed to FC by writing the documentation for the A2plus WB:
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/A2plus_Workbench
(work in progress)
I spent already a lot of time to help with testing, e.g. fro the FEM WB. And I even made a PR to FC that is already in.

Come on, you know the answer: Because it's not implemented yet. And it's not implemented for two reasons: First, there is no pull request from you, and second, other developers are busy doing other stuff than adding tooltips and organizing toolbars.

Ehm, I don't understand. Measuring diameters in parts is something many users need. Since FC is a very mature program I wonder that I am the first one who needs this. This is no offense to anyone! I was pretty sure when I started this thread that there is a simple solution I missed.

you may consider to use Manipulator WB

Many thanks for this hint! I will try it out right now.

[uwestoehr]

I found now a very nice solution:
The Survey tool in the Arch WB:
https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.p ... rch_Survey

I can select all the edged I need and it outputs me the perimeter. The perimeter can be exported to a CSV and then I can do the division by Pi in LibreOffice.

Many thanks for this hint! I will try it out right now.

This is a very useful WB! The measurement works well.

I apologize to come directly with an improvement proposal: The measured values are often a bit hard to read. Maybe you can "steal" the value visualization from the Arch WB. Here is a comparison:

Manipulate-vs-Survey.jpg (376.84 KiB) Viewed 11570 times

The white on blue numbers of the survey tool are easier to read.

I will try out now more features of the Manipulate WB.