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Measure, sections, and views

Measurement

When any part in the project has geometry, Measure appears in the toolbar in part and assembly views. The panel can report:

  • Distance: minimum distance between two faces or edges, or the gap between two parallel flat faces.
  • Angle: between two flat faces, between two axes, or between an axis and a flat face. A cylindrical or conical face counts as its axis, and so does a straight edge.
  • Mass properties: volume, surface area, center of mass and radii of gyration, plus the principal mass moments of inertia (kg·mm²) when the part has a material.

Select up to two faces or edges in the viewport, then press Confirm. Click a selected entity again to deselect it. With one entity selected, the panel reports its type and key dimension. With two, it reports their distance and angle. Select the trash icon on a result row to remove it.

Measurements use the assembly as it is currently posed. Faces and edges can be on any part, including parts inside sub-assemblies. When one part appears several times, for example a sub-assembly placed twice, each copy is measured where it sits, and the result row names the copy (Wheel · Left).

An imported STL mesh has edges along its sharp folds and along the borders of any gaps in it. A straight one measures like any straight edge; a curved one gives its length and distances.

Picking two cylindrical faces, such as two wheels or two shafts, gives the angle between their axes. Turning the second copy in the example above by 15° reads Angle between axes: 15.00°.

Each body row has an axes toggle. Turn it on to show the center-of-mass marker and three principal-axis arrows. Their lengths show how the mass is distributed: the longest arrow points along the direction in which the mass extends furthest. The marker follows the part's placement, and you can show several bodies at once.

Section view

The Section panel adds an interactive clipping plane in part or assembly view. Choose an origin plane, datum plane or planar face, then flip the plane or drag its offset. This is a view setting and is not saved in the document.

Viewport display modes

  • Shaded (with edges), wireframe and transparent (X-ray).
  • Material appearance when a material is assigned.
  • Realistic rendering (cast shadows, a soft ground contact shadow, a glossy finish for un-textured bodies), toggled by the sun button in the sidebar View section.

Drag with the left mouse button to orbit, drag with the right button to pan, and use the scroll wheel to zoom toward the cursor.

Orbit and zoom use the point under the cursor as their focus. Place the cursor over the feature you care about before you drag or scroll. This lets you orbit around a surface or zoom in on a small part within a large assembly. As you get closer, zoom takes smaller steps regardless of the overall model size, keeping the point under the cursor in place.

You do not need to point exactly at a small part; pointing beside it works too. When the cursor is over empty space, zoom uses the middle of the view instead.

The home button in the bottom right frames everything visible in the space the sidebar and any open side panels leave free. To frame one part or assembly, select it and press F, or double-click its row in the model tree.

Named camera views

You can save, apply, recapture, rename and delete camera views. Select a saved view as the camera for PNG image export.