Continuing the "little things that mean a lot" series of posts, the tools for getting measurements from geometry in a drawing have taken a serious leap forward in AutoCAD LT 2010.
The new Measure command is on the Utilities panel of the Home tab. You can see that five different options -- Distance, Radius, Angle, Area, and Volume -- exist under the flyout. Whichever option was last chosen remains the default until you choose another option. Today I'll focus on Distance.
Just like always, you can get the distance between two points by picking them. The information you get back hasn't changed either -- just its display. Instead of burying the information at the command line (where you sometimes have to scroll up to see it and where it gets pushed out of sight by an autosave), you now get all the information right on the drawing. Delta X, Delta Y, total distance, and angle all right in front of you. (It's still at the command line too, in case you need to copy some of the results.)
The command remains active so you can keep getting distances one after the other.
But the best part about the new Distance command is that it supports cumulative distances too. After you pick your first point (but before you pick the second), enter M for Multiple points, or select it from the dynamic input prompt. Then you can keep picking point after point, and the total distance will be displayed next to the cursor and at the command line. You can even measure arcs this way.
The graphic display isn't as compelling as the single-distance result, so here's what the command line looked like after I picked points to define a few lines, an arc, and a few more lines:
Specify first point: <pick>
Specify second point or [Multiple points]: M
Specify next point or [Arc/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: <pick>
Distance = 0.39
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: <pick>
Distance = 0.59
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: A
Distance = 0.59
Specify endpoint of arc or
[Angle/CEnter/CLose/Direction/Line/Radius/Second pt/Undo]: <pick>
Distance = 2.79
Specify endpoint of arc or
[Angle/CEnter/CLose/Direction/Line/Radius/Second pt/Undo]: L
Distance = 2.79
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: <pick>
Distance = 2.99
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: <pick>
Distance = 3.36
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: <pick>
Distance = 3.82
Specify next point or [Arc/Close/Length/Undo/Total] <Total>: *Cancel*
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