Explore how to use ZWCAD’s measurement and calculation tools, including area, distance, and angle measurement, area table creation, and object division features.
Table of Contents
Whether you want to check the length of a line, find the angle between two walls, or locate a point’s coordinates, ZWCAD offers several easy-to-use commands to help you gather geometric data from your drawing.
DIST: Measure Lengths and Angles Between Points
Use the DIST command when you want to:
This is perfect when checking if your drawn lines are the right length or aligned properly.
ID: Get a Point’s Coordinates
The ID command tells you the exact X, Y, and Z coordinates of a point you click in the drawing. Useful for finding anchor points or checking alignment.
MEASUREGEOM: All-in-One Measuring Tool
The MEASUREGEOM command bundles several measurement tools together:
Use this if you prefer one command to do it all.
LIST: See Details About a Selected Object
The LIST command displays key data based on what you select. For example:
| Object Type | What You Get |
|---|---|
| Line | Length, start and end points |
| Circle | Radius, circumference, center point |
| Spline | Length, control points, fit points |
This is great for verifying object properties quickly.
PROPERTIES: View Info in a Palette
Use the PROPERTIES command to open the Properties palette. Select an object, and you’ll see key info such as:
QUICKCALC: Built-In Calculator
Use the QUICKCALC command to open the calculator panel, you can:
You can access QuickCalc by:
AREA: Measure Enclosed Areas
Use the AREA command to measure the space inside:
You can also define an area manually by clicking points to enclose a shape. Just make sure they lie on a flat plane.
The information you obtained differs depending on the type of solid object:
| Object Type | Info Measured |
|---|---|
| Circle | Area, circumference |
| Ellipse | Area, perimeter |
| 3D Solid | Total surface area |
| Open Polyline | Area (auto-closes shape), length |
For a non-closed object, a line segment is used to join the start and end points to calculate the area, but the length of the line segment itself will not be counted in the area.
For a wide polyline, its centerline is used as the boundary to calculate the area.
The AREA command can also be used to calculate composite areas, combining or excluding multiple shapes.
Please note that the Area option of the MEASUREGEOM command can also obtain the area composed of specified objects or points, which has the same functionality as the Area command.
MASSPROP: Get Mass and Volume Data
The MASSPROP command gives you physical properties of 2D regions or 3D solids, including:
Results can be saved as a .txt file for records or analysis.
The Mass Properties option of the MEASUREGEOM command can also obtain the mass properties of a specified object, which has the same functionality as the MASSPROP command.
AREATABLE: Organize and Display Area Info
Use the AREATABLE command to:
Area Dimension
The area dimension can display the dimension name, the area value, or both, but please note that the area dimension is not associated with closed area.
You can specify the area boundary in three ways:
You can also create a boundary set in advance, and then choose a boundary from this set when defining the area.
The dimension name can be manually entered, or automatically numbered in sequence. For automatic numbering, the names increase incrementally starting from a user-defined start value. The start value can be:
Mixed-case formats (e.g., Aa) are not supported.
Area Table
The area table is used to collect and display area information from closed regions in your drawing. When creating an area table, you need to specify the following:
Additionally, the area table can be exported in CSV format to a specified file path, allowing for further data analysis and processing in external tools like Excel.
MEASURE & DIVIDE – Place Marks Along an Object
These two commands help you place points or blocks at even intervals on an object—without splitting it.
When using point marks to divide an object, the divisions are displayed as single points by default. To clearly visualize these division points in the drawing, you can adjust their appearance using the DDPTYPE command to set a different point style.
When using block marks to divide an object, the blocks must already be defined in the current drawing. During the division process, you can choose whether the blocks should be aligned with the object.
The illustration below shows two scenarios: Not Aligened (Left) and Aligned (Right)
When you use blocks as marks to divide a selected object, variable attributes within blocks are not available if you use MEASURE and DIVIDE commands. The basepoints of block definitions are on the selected object and break the object.
In the figure below, if you insert the attribute block on the left as a separator into the third bisector of the right line, the attribute of the block is not available.
The CAL command lets you perform math directly in the command line. It supports:
| Operator | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| + | x + y | Addition operation |
| - | x - y | Subtraction operation |
| * | x * y | Multiplication operation |
| / | x / y | Division operation |
| ^ | x ^ y | Exponentiation |
| - | -x | Negation operation |
| Operator | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| & | [a,b,c] & [x,y,z] = [(b*z) - (c*y), (c*x) - (a*z), (a*y) - (b*x)] | Vector product |
| * | [a,b,c] * [x,y,z] = ax + by + cz | Scalar product |
| *, / | a * [x,y,z] = [a*x, a*y, a*z] | Multiplication and division of vectors and real numbers |
| +, - | [a,b,c] + [x,y,z] = [a+x, b+y, c+z] | Vector addition and subtraction |
| ^ | x ^ y | Exponentiation |
| - | -x | Negation operation |
| Function | Example | Description | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| sin | sin(x) | Sine | Trigonometric Function |
| cos | cos(x) | Cosine | Trigonometric Function |
| tang | tang(x) | Tangent | Trigonometric Function |
| asin | asin(x) | Arcsine (inverse sine) | Trigonometric Function |
| acos | acos(x) | Arccosine (inverse cosine) | Trigonometric Function |
| atan | atan(x) | Arctangent (inverse tangent) | Trigonometric Function |
| sqr | sqr(x) | Square | General Math Function |
| sqrt | sqrt(x) | Square root | General Math Function |
| abs | abs(x) | Absolute value | General Math Function |
| ln | ln(x) | Natural logarithm (base e) | General Math Function |
| log | log10(x) | Common logarithm (base 10) | General Math Function |
| exp | exp(x) | Exponential (base e) | General Math Function |
| exp10 | exp10(x) | Exponential (base 10) | General Math Function |
| round | round(x) | Round to the nearest integer | Rounding / Truncation |
| trunc | trunc(x) | Truncate decimal (integer part only) | Rounding / Truncation |
| r2d | r2d(x) | Convert radians to degrees | Unit Conversion |
| d2r | d2r(x) | Convert degrees to radians | Unit Conversion |
| pi | pi | Pi (≈ 3.1416) | Constant |
Example:
Command: CAL
Expression or [? (for help)]: abs((56.32+2.97)/3.51-8.93*9.26)
Use the QUICKCALC command to open the calculator panel. You can:
In ZWCAD Flex, you can access the QuickCalc through following methods.
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