Measuring Minimum Distances

This task explains how to measure minimum distance between products.

Open the AnalyzingAssembly01.CATProduct document.

Click the Distance icon to calculate distances.

The Edit Distance dialog box appears.

Three computation types are available:

	inside one selection: (default type): within any one selection, tests each product of the selection against all other products in the same selection.
	Between two selections: tests each product in the first selection against all products in the second selection.
	Selection against all: tests each product in the defined selection against all other products in the document.

Select Between two selections.

Select CRIC_TOP (CRIC_TOP.1) to define Selection 1.

Click Selection 2 field and multi-select CRIC_BRANCH_3 (CRIC_BRANCH_3.1) and CRIC_JOIN (CRIC_JOIN.1)

You can select as many products as you want. Products will be placed in the active selection. To de-select products, reselect them in the specification tree or the geometry area.

Click Apply to calculate the distance.

A Preview window appears visualizing selected products and the minimum distance (represented by a line, two arrows and a value). The Edit Distance dialog box expands to show the results.

If necessary, pan, zoom and/or rotate in the Preview window to visualize the results better.

Minimum distance and other information identifying all distance components is given in the expanded dialog box. X, Y, Z coordinates of start and end points on products selected for the distance calculation as well as products themselves are identified.

Click OK to close the dialog boxes.