what does measure perimeter measure?

[gmatelich]

Measure perimeter gives a number based on a selected face. The case I'm looking at appears not to be the external perimeter. Is it the sum of the perimeters of all edges? The help wasn't much help.

I'm looking for a measure tool similar to the 'area prop' in OSDd (ME10).

[fox-myers]

Perimeter gives the sum of the edge lengths of ALL boundary edges of a face. I am not which measurements you are most interested in but if you use Face Measure and select report, OSDM will output both the area and the centroid location of the face. Some of the features that you can get in OSDD Area Properties (i.e. moment of inertia), really fall under the category of Part Measure in OSDM.

HTH!

[gmatelich]

In this case, I'm interested in the outside perimeter of the face, i.e. the fence line of the property, so to speak. A measure edge length with a chain option, like in blend create, would be handy.
I guess I can temporarily extrude in the internal features so I have face with only OD edges, measure, then undo.
Thanks.

[fox-myers]

Originally posted by gmatelich
I guess I can temporarily extrude in the internal features so I have face with only OD edges, measure, then undo.
Thanks.
If you are thinking about physically modifying your model to get this information, you may want to consider just calculating the perimeter. Measure the perimeter, put that value in the calculater and subtract the edge length of the internal boundaries. Depending on how many internal boundaries you have this may work out for you or be really tedious. :rolleyes:

Wait here's a way that could be faster. Copy the face you want the outer perimeter for. Then use the surfacing command Grow to close up the internal holes in the face. Now you can measure the perimeter and get just the outside perimeter.

I'm sure someone could create a little LISP code to figure this out too. But measuring just the external perimeter sounds like a good ER to me. :)