Measure tool in Solidworks/EDrawings (point to point, possible?)

Ted,

You can measure between any two selectable objects, end point, vertex, point and curve, surface and point etc.

Just select the objects, and click the measure tool. (it looks like a little ruler)

Regards

Mark

Ted, reading your message I wonder whether the other Mark misunderstood your question -- because you aren't very clear on a point. That point is whether or not you've been successful importing that file into SolidWorks and if so what kind of result you got. eDrawings obviously won't open IGES files directly and it's quite possible for you to import an IGES only to find that it is Surfaces only (no Solids), that you can't knit it into a Solid, and that there are no vertexes to grab for measurement. In such a case it is likely that you can create a 3D sketch (a single line) and constrain the endpoints to be coincident with specific surfaces, thus you can get an approximation of measurements. You should also be able to constrain the 3D line to be parallel with planes and/or to be a specific distance from a plane. You will likely have to use a parallel constraint first before you can create a distance constraint.

H>

Mark, I think my problem may stem from the fact that my solidworks file is created from a NURBS based igs file. when I click on my file, I select a patch and not a point and I never gain acces to the measure tool. If you want to see what I mean take a look at the files for yourself:

Thanks for the input, Ted

Ted,

Have you tried opening the file in SW ??

The individual components (bones) seem to be made up of rectangular NURBS patches. Every corner of every rectangular patch has a corner "vertex" that can be referanced for measurment. This is true whether or not the it's a solid, or a collection of surfaces. I wasn't able to select these from the edrawing, but I can guarantee you that I could from inside SW. In fact, you also have some planer faces so you can do some "normal" distances.

Regards

Mark

Ted,

I think I get it,

You don't have the IGES or SW file ? All you have is the edrawing ?

I think the capability of an edrawing is dependant on the level of the publisher that was used to generate it. I think a file has to be generated with the professional version in order for the measure tool to be active. I could be wrong though, I don't use edrawings much myself.

If you plan on doing any real work with th data, you need the real geometry.

Regards

Mark

I don't use edrawings either, but I'm almost positive that you have to use the professional version and you also have to choose to allow measurements to be made on the model.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Thank you all for your input. I'll try to better explain what I'm trying to do and maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

I began by creating a NURBS based IGES file in Geomagic Studio from a point cloud (I also have polygon versions of this file.) I then imported that file into SW and from there saved it into an Edrawings format. The reason for this is that I want to have someone take measurements on this file (linear is fine) and that person does not have a software package like SW or Geomagic. A simple version of Edrawings can be downloaded for free so I thought this was a good way to go. Now that I see it won't work, does anyone know of a substitute program this person can use to measure from a point to a point on the surface of file. And when I say point, I don't mean vertex, I mean where ever you click. This is something you can do in Geomagic during the polygon phase. After reading your tips it looks like the Pro version of Edrawings may do this but the goal is to pull this off without buying software. Thanks again for your help. Ted

Ted,

You can get a free 15 day license of Solidview

.It will read SW files directly

There's also a freebee, but I don't think you can measure with it.

Regards

Mark

Ted,

I just downloaded and installed Model Press (thanks Olaf Diegel).

It's free, it reads in SW files, and publishes an accurate polymesh model that can be measured. All the person at the other end needs is the viewer.

To ask for a free program that can do what a >$20,000,00 program (Raindrop) can do is asking a bit much. The resolution is based on the SW display list. If you want the highest accuracy, open your model, set the display slider all the way over to the left, and save. This should yield a file with sufficient vertices so that you can measure from anywhere.

Open the Model Press publisher, browse to the SW model, and generate the viewable (measurable) file. These files are highly compressed automatically for web applications.

If you have an Nvidia Quadro card, make sure you don't turn hardware acceleration on (inside the program, not the Windows screen properties). It doesn't work for some reason, and will cause files to open with a blank graphics screen. This isn't that much of a problem as I've tested it with some moderatly large SW assemblies. The performance is still pretty good.

Regards

Mark