What a fun weekend! Richmond, VA (where I live) got it’s first real snow since 2005. While I know some who absolutely hate the thought of snow, I personally like it. Seems I’ve got at least one friend in my dog (black Labrador) named Guinness, who got to see snow for the first time and couldn’t get enough of frisbee in the snow! Of course in the mix of that was a call from grandma who had lost power and was effectively snowed in. So yesterday afternoon I paid her a visit to dig her out, and get her a bite to eat. Needless to say, I didn’t get too much work accomplished yesterday, and frankly I’m ok with that!
As much as I could blog about my snow filled weekend, I know why you’re here – AutoCAD! Parametric drawing and the contextual ribbon are naturally the flagship new features to AutoCAD 2010, but what else is there to the upcoming release? One of those tools is what I would describe as an enhanced AREA command. There’s probably someone at Autodesk reading this saying NOOOO it’s so much more than that. Whatever the case, the MEASUREGEOM command is worth taking a look at.
Finding the MEASUREGEOM Command
You can find the full array of tools on the Utilities Panel of the Home tab. Among the tools we have at our disposal are Distance, Radius, Angle, Area, and Volume. To access any of these tools, simply press the little down arrow on the Measure button.
Super Duper Area Highlighting
So what makes the MEASUREGEOM command better than the age-old AREA, DISTANCE, SUBTRACT, etc commands? My favorite part is the interactive highlighting. While I know the AREA command does something similar, the MEASUREGEOM command seems to take it another step.
The screen capture above illustrates just how the MEASUREGEOM command takes things to the next level. Within the command I first added the entire Hall area, and then subtracted the portion consumed by the stairs. Notice the area highlighting AutoCAD places over the area. As you’ve probably already guessed, the green area shows the area being added, and the red the area being subtracted.
Again, the MEASUREGEOM command sports quite the arsenal of measurement inquiry tools. In addition to the area command highlighted (no pun intended) above, we’ve also got tools for distance, radius, angle, and volume. As a general rule each of these work like their classic counterparts. For instance the Distance function is virtually identical to the good ole’ DISTANCE command. Not sold on the MEASUREGEOM command, never fear DISTANCE, AREA, and the like are all still valid commands.
Related posts:
- Creating Custom Contextual Ribbon Tabs in AutoCAD 2010
- REVERSE – Now a “real” AutoCAD Command
- New functionality of the Layer Isolate (LAYISO) Command
- Becoming a Keyboard Warrior – The Command Alias Editor
- Weekly Roundup – AutoCAD Edition: AutoCAD 2010 Update, AUGI Wishlists, & AutoCAD Internet Survey
Even the look of the button for AutoCAD makes me want it haha.
Are all of these measurement tools new to AutoCAD 2010?
@ James – The MEASUREGEOM command is new to 2010, although similar tools already exist in other commands. For instance, we already have separate AREA & DISTANCE commands. I think the fairest assessment of the MEASUREGEOM command is that it “assembles & enhances” many of these pre-existing commands.
Nice feature :)
Only make sure that your Workspace is set to ’2D Drafting & Annotation’.
Or if set to set to ‘AutoCAD Classic’ you can find it in the pulldown menu ‘Tools/Inquiry’.
But you can better learn to work with the Ribbon