Explore the advanced features of the measure tool in Navisworks to get precise measurements of your models. This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to use this tool, including tips for positioning, saving viewpoints, and enabling specific measurement settings for maximum accuracy.
Key Insights
- The measure tool in Navisworks permits users to derive accurate measurements from their 3D models, acting like a virtual tape measure. One can leverage this tool to measure specific parts of a model, such as the glass within a door.
- Proper positioning and viewpoint management play a significant role in enabling accurate measurements. Users can save viewpoints to maintain consistency and make the process smoother.
- For consistent measurement results, users should ensure the correct settings are enabled, including checking all checkboxes under measure and snapping options, and setting linear units to feet and inches fractions with 1/8 fractional display precision.
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Welcome back to the Navisworks video series. In this video, I'll be covering the Measure tool, and we'll be using the Meadowgate model that we used in the first couple of videos. Once your model is open, I'd like you to make sure that the Saved Viewpoints panel is open.
If your scene looks something like this and you don't have a tab over there, let's go up to the Viewpoint tab and in Save, Load, and Playback, select the Dialog Launcher and then just make sure that your Auto Height is turned off. The Measure tool allows you to use a virtual tape measure in Navisworks to get actual measurement values from your model. For this example, we'll be using this door and measuring the glass within that door.
So the first thing I'd like you to do is get in a good position where that door is directly in front of you and we have a good view to work with. It doesn't have to be exactly centered—just somewhere where we can clearly see the door and be able to pick some points on it. Once you have that view set, right-click on the Saved Viewpoints panel and save a Viewpoint.
Call this one "Door." You can also hit the camera icon in the Save Viewpoints, Save, Load, and Playback panel. Now let's get our Measure tool ready to go.
It's in the Review tab, and it's the first panel under that Review tab. What I'd like you to do first is select the Dialog Launcher that opens the Measure Options. If yours is docked like I have shown here, just tear it away and set it somewhere else out of the way.
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I'm putting mine on the bottom left. Then go to Options, and we need to make sure that we are consistent between what I am showing you here and what you have on your screen. In Measure, make sure that all four of these checkboxes are turned on.
Second, under Display Units, set Linear Units to "Feet and Inches – Fractions" and set Fractional Display Precision to 1/8. Then drop down to the Snapping Selection section, and ensure that Snap to Vertex, Snap to Edge, and Snap to Line Vertex are all turned on. Once you have those settings applied, hit OK.
Now let's start to measure. On the top left, the first button in the Measure panel is the Measure Split button. This is split between your previously used tool and all of the tools that are available.
We're going to start with Point to Point. And because we have snapping on, we can simply drag our cursor over either an Edge or a Vertex and you'll see the icon change. Once the icon changes, you know that if you select, you're getting that exact edge or point you're hovering over.
So I'd like you to pick one Edge on the top and one Edge on the bottom of this window so we can get the height. Now I've drawn a diagonal line, which means that this readout is not actually going to be the height of the window, but rather the blue line will be. That blue line is telling me that Z = 7 feet 8 inches.
If you wanted to invert that, you could just select the bottom and then select the top. We can get more efficient at this. For example, if we wanted to know the height and width at the same time, we could just select the bottom-left Vertex of the window and then select the top-right Vertex.
We'll see that our Z readout is given to us as well as our Y readout. I'm going to get in real close to verify that we got the right spots. There's the start, which is that bottom Vertex.
And that looks correct. Then I’ll navigate forward and up to the second Vertex. And it looks like, yes, we do have the correct points to measure from.
If you hit the Clear button, your dimension will go away. So let's look at some of the other Measure tools. If you hit the down arrow at the Split button, and select Point to Multiple Points, then this tool will allow us to create one point and then measure in different directions from that point.
As an example, let's select the bottom-left corner of the window. If we want to know the width of the window, we can simply select the bottom-right corner, and it will give us our real-time readout. If we want to know the height from that same point, we can then select the top of the window, and it will give us a new readout.
We can continually draw a line from that one point without having to reselect that point every time. Hit Clear to get rid of the measurement. The next one is Point Line, and this tool allows us to accumulate multiple dimensions.
If we want to know the perimeter of this window for some reason, then we can select each of the Vertices. The readout will show the accumulated sum of all the lengths that we've drawn so far. Hit Clear to get rid of that one.