Measuring in Wildfire 3

dst270 · #1 (**permalink**) May 4th, 2006, 04:26 PM

Has anyone else had difficulties with the measure tool in Wildfire 3? It has been changed significantly, in my opinion, the previous version was far better to use.

In WF2 we used to have a series of mapkeys which would open the Measure window, set the "type" to distance, and set the "From" and "To" options to plane-plane, plane-axis, axis-axis, part-part, etc. This made it easy to measure whatever we wanted very quickly.

In WF3, the measure tool uses the selection filter at the bottom of the screen to determine what is to be selected. It is not easy to write a mapkey to make the measure tool quick & easy to use.

Does anyone have a solution to this? Either a mapkey or (even better) is it possible to get the old measure tool back?

#2 (**permalink**) May 17th, 2006, 03:12 PM

Input from our partner site MCADCentral.com:
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In WF2 the config option enable_k01_msr_anls controls the measure tool (set to yes or no), I haven't used WF3 - but maybe that config option still works. Are you using the same config.pro file in WF3 as you did in WF2?

sdjohnson

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Good luck!
3DCADTips Help Desk

dst270 · #3 (**permalink**) May 21st, 2006, 07:44 PM

Thanks for that, I tried it but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I am using a very similar config.pro file to WF2.

#4 (**permalink**) May 25th, 2006, 08:18 AM

your measuring tool is in the top tool bar under analysis.

dst270 · #5 (**permalink**) May 30th, 2006, 10:34 PM

I realise that, the problem is the functionality has been changed significantly in Wildfire 3. For such an important function, I think PTC could have done way better.

#6 (**permalink**) May 31st, 2006, 08:53 PM

If you feel very strongly about this then see if you can reload the older version. But take into account any documents you already have saved in WF3. I'm not to sure about backward compatibility to WF2. I've been looking around other forums and this appears to be a common gripe so it's very likely that PTC will address the problem in subsequent updates.

3DCADTips Help Desk.

#7 (**permalink**) June 6th, 2006, 09:17 AM

Hello dst270,

Here is some input on this topic from our partner site at MCADCentral.com:

Zaki:

Hi Guys
I think its a little bit different but not so dangerous, u just need to find right way to measure. Normaly the diffeculty is feeling at plane to plane or plane to anything measurment. In this always check "use as plane" check box. Just try to find all the right ways and dont panic, WF 3 is so good.

design-engine:

I always measure in drawing mode with cross sections. Less chance for mistake.

Good Luck!
3DCADTips Help Desk