Measure tool gives X and Y dimensions

[J. Grouchy]

Something AutoCAD does that was/is extremely useful. When I measure something, I'd like to be able to see the x and y dimensions rather than just the aligned dimension (maybe in the status bar below...or in another toolbar).

[PeterJ]

In the words of the song, I second that emotion

[Martin P]

Agree with that 100% it would be very useful...

[Scott Hopkins]

affirmative.

[Taylor A]

Yep.....angles from the horizontal too

[sfaust]

add my vote.

[gregcashen]

I think the basic inspection/modification tools in Revit need to be relooked at from the ground up. The issues with not being able to scale things has been noted. The objection that parametrics is used for this purpose is like trying to fuel every aircraft in flight. It is great that they canfuel some airplanes in flight so that the fail safe mechanism of national security isn't jeopardized, but as long as some planes are on the ground occasionally, there might as well be a way to fuel them on the ground...it's cheaper, faster and makes more sense. Having to anticipate every possible way that a family might need to be scaled and bloating the family with the parametrics to do so in the off chance that it needs to be done that way is silly. I would love to be able to edit an extrusion, scale the linework and quit editting and have a new extrusion with the new size. Think about doing this with a star shape. Coming up with the parametrics to scale it in the family is not exactly straightforward and takes way more time than the simple scale method.

Same goes for finding the area of a surface or portion of a view. First off, it can't be done in Revit...period. I know about area plans. That is, again, like using a cargo plane to transport baked goods from the city to the 'burbs. I should be able to have a tool that gives me the area like autocad does (autocad is a great program, by the way. it has all these tools to quickly enable me to do what I need to do. if the tool doesn't exist, I can create it. I know I sound like I am wishy-washy about the API thing, but without these simple tools, API is NECESSARY!!) Same goes for multiple entity stretch, align, trim, location inspection, layout/snapping of annotation objects (text), I could go on and on. I hope the next release has major improvements to these basic tools.

I can see the issue with scaling in a family. If you were to scale something without parametrics, there is no way to make changes on the fly within a project when that family is loaded. You no longer have access to the extrusion linework, so you can't just scale it to make a new type. But you could have a way to define quantum states of a family's geometry and then set that quantum state to a type. you still wouldn't be able to change it by degrees within a project, but you could load the family and have the loaded quantum states available. It would be cool if there were a type of parameter for profiles such that you could change the scale factor within Revit without having to define all the parametrics and the profile would just scale up or down.

Anyway...long rant. I'm going back to work

[fernando]

how do u want to see a x, y measure? , if in revit we draw objects that are related, more than drawing lines over a x,y cordinated grid?

to me, and after 15 years using autocad, it's a great improvement , changing from lines in space , to objects in earth

[gregcashen]

Cartesian coordinates totally pre-date Autocad. To say that Revit is a step forward because it gives us NO coordinate system to use to determine relative distances is just plain silly. I have never gotten why this is the case and I still don't. If someone can convince me, I'll take all this back. But the caveat is this: I won't say Autocad if you don't. It seems like every objection about the way something works (or doesn't) in Revit includes a reference to Autocad. Forget autocad and think in terms of your ability to describe and modify your model. If you can't accurately move an element diagonally in one step without having to break out a calculator or figure out the trig to enter into the dim string, then it is not progress.

[Steve_Stafford]

I'll step in the "mud" and say that I can't recall ever wishing for x,y info on an object when using the tape measure...can't say that I ever really did in Autocad either...I used the tracking features, osnap/polar/otrack...fwiw