Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations GregLocock on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Calculating path length 2

Status
Not open for further replies.

JoeMarfice

Industrial
Sep 13, 2012
2
I have a structure that "meanders" - it is composed of both straight sections and curved sections. I need a precise measurement of the entire structure, preferably as a dynamically linked dimension.

Measure>Continuous allows me to measure each of the segments (although it seems I might have to use piecewise linear approximations to the curves), but even that command doesn't allow me to sum them all up automatically.

Doesn't seem like this shouldn't be possible, but I can't figure out how to do it.
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

The easiest way to get the length of a "meandering" line is to convert it to a Polyline and then open the properties window (or use the getarea command).

To convert a line into a Polyline:
1. Enter "editpolyline" into the command window
2. Select a line to start with
3. Enter "Y" to turn the line into a Polyline
4. Enter "J" to convert other line segments into a single Polyline
5. Select line segments to convert into a Polyline
6. End the command

To get the Length of a Polyline:
1. Select the polyline
2. Open the Properties window
or
1. Enter "getarea" into the command window
2. Enter "E" to specify the Polyline Entity
3. Select the polyline
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor