Measure Tool 
¶
With the measurement tool you can view a wide array of useful information about any shape object. To use this tool, click on the icon in the Creation Tools toolbar. (Alt+M)
It will display the following dialog:
As you hover the curor over shapes, it will highlight any indiviual shape in green and the line or curve segment the cursor is currently over in purple, as you can see below:
The values show in the measurement dialog are as follows:
- Nodes: Number of vertices (beginning or ending points of line/curve segments) in the shape.
- Lines: Number of straight lines in the shape.
- Curves: Number of arcs or bezier curves in the shape.
- Perimeter Length: Total length of all line/curve segments in the shape.
- Closed/Open: Whether or not the shape is closed. Defined as all line/curve segments beginning and ending on nodes shared with another line/curve segment.
- Area: The total area of the shape. Value is empty if shape is not closed.
- Segment Length: Length of the line/curve segment currently highlighted in purple.
- Start Point: X,Y coordinate of the start node of the currently highlighted line/curve segment.
- End Point: X,Y coordinate of the end node of the currently highlighted line/curve segment.
- Difference: End Point values minus the Start Point Values
- Angle: Angle of the line between the start and end points. In the case of regular line segments this is the angle of the line itself.
- Arc Radius: For curves that are perfect circular arcs and not complex bezier curves, this is the radius of that arc. Value is empty otherwise.
- Arc Center: For curves that are perfect circular arcs and not complex bezier curves, this is the center point of that arc. Value is empty otherwise.
Below you can see further examples of the state of the measurement tool dialog, based on the type of segment being measured.
Drag Measure¶
If you need to measure the distance between two shapes you can click and drag between and two anchor points and get the above information but pertaining to the two nodes.
