Measuring distances

Distance between points

You can measure the distance between 2 points on a model using the Measure Distance tool. Access the tool from the right button menu or the right sidebar:

Once active a dialog pops up with instructions at the bottom.

Holding "P" (for "point") while clicking will add a start and end point to the measurement. The points are shown by two pencil markers, red for the start point, blue for the end. The dialog now shows the coordinates of the first point, the x,y,z components of the difference, and the total distance.

All coordinates and distances are in terms of the currently active Coordinate Reference System (CRS).

You can change the units used with the drop down. When working with old structures, it is important to check dimensions in imperial measurements, so decimal feet, decimal inches, and feet and inches are offered as display units.

Once two markers are displayed, they can be dragged to fine tune or alter their position.

Normal distance between planar surfaces

Sometimes it is necessary to measure an offset normal to a planar surface, for example when measuring the square span of a skew bridge.

There are two ways to approach this. One is to set up a Coordinate Reference System (CRS) that aligns a plan axis with the abutment face. You can then use the measurement tool and pick the relevant distance component.

The other is to create a plane on the abutment face, copy and paste the plane parameters into Excel, move the plane to the other face, copy and paste again, then take the difference of the plane offsets.

Copying coordinate data

To copy the coordinates of a point on the model to the clipboard, hold the C key while clicking. A message will show briefly at the bottom of the display to confirm that a point has been copied.

The default copy mode is "tab separated". With this mode, the coordinate values will paste into separate cells in Excel. If you aren't sure what comma separated and JSON are, it's likely you don't need them.

Copied data respects the selected display units, so if display units are feet, all copied data will be in feet.

To copy the data to the clipboard, type Ctrl-C (or Cmd-C on macOS) the clipboard data is of the following form:

Delimited values:

This consists of the first point x,y,z, the difference x,y,z, the distance, in that order:

-65.013,0.000,-38.691,7.003,0.000,-6.520,9.568

JSON:

This consists of the two end point coordinates, the difference and the distance:

{
  "Unit": "m",
  "CRS": "test bridge card Native",
  "Measurement": {
    "Ends": [
      [
        -65.01349,
        0.0,
        -38.6911545
      ],
      [
        -58.0107956,
        0.0,
        -45.21111
      ]
    ],
    "Difference": [
      7.002693,
      0.0,
      -6.51995468
    ],
    "Distance": 9.568047
  }
}

Copy coordinates of a point to the clipboard

Press the C key and click on the model

Deliminated values:

-62.787,0.000,-43.596,m

JSON:

{
  "Unit": "m",
  "CRS": "test bridge card Native",
  "Point": [
    -60.85592,
    0.0,
    -46.8207321
  ]
}

Copy coordinates of points to a file

Press Ctrl-C (Cmd-C on macOS) and click on the model, a dialog appears to allow you to add the data to a file, along with some text to identify the point.

Plane parameters

Select a plane and type Ctrl-C (or Cmd-C on macOS), the clipboard data is of the following form:

Deliminated values:

This consists of the distance from the plane to the origin, plus the plane normal vector

-10.67445,0,-1,0

JSON:

{
  "Unit": "m",
  "CRS": "test bridge card Native",
  "Plane": {
    "Normal": [
      0.0,
      -1.0,
      0.0
    ],
    "Distance": -10.6744537
  }
}

Note that these values can be pasted back into the Add Plane Parameters dialog to create another plane using those values as a starting point - eg if you want to create another plane parallel to the first.

Viewport size in Orthographic Mode

If the camera is set to orthographic mode then, when zooming, the viewport size will be displayed at the bottom of the screen

Clipboard data formats

the data export methods on this page all use the clipboard to export data, this can be in 2 formats, character deliminated values or JSON.

On the left-toolbar is a drop-down to select 3 formats for the data:

• Tab-Separated
• Comma-Separated
• JSON