Measuring

The measuring tool reads its values from the exact geometry in a STEP or IGES file, so a hole's diameter is the diameter the designer specified, not an approximation from the triangles on screen.

Turn the tool on with the Measure button in the toolbar, or press M while the viewport has focus. Press M or click the button again to turn it off. The tool is off whenever a model opens, and it is not available in Photo Mode.

Picking

Action	Result
Hover	Highlights the vertex, edge, or face under the pointer and labels it with its main value, such as an edge's length, a hole's diameter, or a flat face's area
Click	Picks the highlighted item and anchors its label to it
Click a second item	Measures the two picks against each other
Click a third item	Starts a new measurement from that item
Click a picked item again	Releases it
Click empty space	Clears the picks

A vertex close to the pointer is picked ahead of an edge, and an edge ahead of the face beneath it. Geometry hidden behind other surfaces is never picked. While the tool is on, double-clicking does not select parts, because the first click of a double-click is a pick.

The label

The label on the model is the tool's complete readout. Once an item is picked, clicking its label opens it to show every value for the pick, such as the X, Y, and Z components of a distance, or the angle and length of an arc.

Clicking a value copies its number alone, without the diameter symbol, unit, or degree sign, ready to paste into another application. Clicking a unit shows a choice between millimetres and inches, and choosing one converts every value on the label. The unit starts as inches for a file written in imperial units and as millimetres otherwise, and a unit you choose is kept until Solidly quits. The overall dimensions use the same unit.

The open label closes with its chevron, with a click anywhere outside it, or with Esc. A click outside the label only closes it and does not pick anything.

Single items

Item	Values
Straight edge	Length
Circle or arc	Diameter (Ø) for a full circle, radius (R) for an arc
Ellipse	Major and minor axes
Flat face	Area
Hole or shaft	Diameter, or radius for a partial cylinder
Cone	Included angle
Sphere	Spherical diameter (SØ), or spherical radius (SR) for part of a sphere
Fillet	Tube radius

Two items

When two items are picked, each is treated as the feature it represents. A flat face is a plane. A straight edge, or the axis of a hole, shaft, or cone, is a line. A vertex, or the centre of a circle or sphere, is a point.

Pair	Result
Two parallel planes, two parallel lines, or a line parallel to a plane	The perpendicular distance between them
Two planes or two lines at an angle	The angle between them, up to 90°, with its supplement. Two edges that meet at a corner give the angle of that corner
Two hole or shaft axes, circle centres, or sphere centres	The distance between centres, with the minimum distance between the surfaces
A point and a plane or a line	The perpendicular distance
Any other pair, such as two freeform surfaces	The minimum distance, measured on the triangles and marked "≈"

Exact and approximate values

Many files store a simple shape in a general form. A circle may be written as a spline, and an IGES file has no cylinder entity, so a hole arrives as a line revolved around an axis. Solidly measures such a face or edge as the simple shape it matches, provided the match is within 0.0001 mm.

A value measured on the triangles instead of the exact geometry is marked "≈". That applies to distances between freeform surfaces and to anything measured on a freeform face.

Measuring a section

While the section view is open, the curves where the plane cuts the model, their end points, and the cut faces can be picked and measured in the same way as the file's own edges, vertices, and faces. A pick on the cut stays on the same face as the plane moves and is measured again at the new position.