How do I measure the vertical distance along an axis?

[deostroll]

I am trying to find the z-axis distance from the XY plane to a particular point on the object (in other words, the vertical distance). Perhaps the pic below can throw more light.



I checked out the measure tool, but it is quite limited in this sense. Or is it?

[deostroll]

Oh, well, I have an answer.

You can indirectly infer this. Use the measure tool. Click on the first point of interest, and, click any other point in the figure. Make sure the Distance is selected in the Model view. In the data tab just read off the z value of the first point.

[chrisb]

In this case it is easiest if you do it in Sketcher with a (blue) reference constraint:

Bildschirmfoto 2018-12-28 um 13.43.31.png (19.27 KiB) Viewed 4318 times

Besides that it is always recommended to fully constrain a sketch. The white lines will then turn green.

[NormandC]

You can indirectly infer this. Use the measure tool. Click on the first point of interest, and, click any other point in the figure. Make sure the Distance is selected in the Model view. In the data tab just read off the z value of the first point.

The standard "measure distance" tool from the global toolbar is pretty limited. There are far more useful measurement tools in the Part workbench. See the documentation for Part Measure Linear.

[freedman]

Not saying it's the best of practice:
I just placed all the measure tools (from Part WB) in a custom toolbar and installed that in Part Design, they seem to work just as well in both work benches. The Part tape measure tools are limited but certainly better than what's currently in Part Design. Thanks for bringing this up, I could have used this a couple months ago.

Maybe this should be checked out for an addition to Part Design. It seems to manage the Tasks tabs in the Combo panel perfectly.

[NormandC]

I think the Part measure tools should be global... Maybe in a menu accessible from any workbench.

[chrisb]

+1

[freedman]

It appears the measure tools are smart enough to select valid vertex. Unfortunately this tool won't select points on a STL file, bummer!

[chrisb]

You are right, but I think it's ok to convert it to a shape. After all FreeCAD is not a mesh program.

[freedman]

I searched and did this procedure on my STL:

Switch to the Part workbench.
Select the mesh, and go to the Part menu --> Create shape from mesh.
Click OK to the dialog.
Select the newly created shape.
Go to Part --> Convert to solid.
Select the newly created solid.
Go to Part --> Refine shape.

In the pic some of the suface has been cleaned of mesh but the radius still has a bunch. Is there a way to clean this up, there are so many vertexes to choose from when I make measurements? I'm guessing this is as far as the conversion can go.