From the course: InfraWorks 2017 Essential Training

Measuring your model - InfraWorks Tutorial

From the course: InfraWorks 2017 Essential Training

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Measuring your model

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- [Voiceover] One thing that is sure to happen when you're using InfraWorks 360 models is that people are going to ask questions about them. And one of the most common types of questions is, how far is it from here to there? Let's see how measurements are made in InfraWorks 360. I'm in the chapter seven Lynda Heights model. I've chosen a proposal called Analysis and a bookmark called Phase One. I want to talk to you about two different distance tools, and to find them I'll click the core tools icon and then this final icon which is the Analyze your model icon. Here you'll see two distance tools, point to point distance, and path distance, and there are differences between these two tools, so let's check and see what they are. A practical question that you might be asked when proposing this development to maybe some members of the community or to the developer is, how far is this development from the ocean? That's where the point to point distance tool can be really handy. I'll click the tool, simply pick a point near the edge of the water, and then click a point somewhere in our development, and I can even hold off on clicking that second point, and in case there is a specific question, how far is it to the clubhouse? About 1800 feet. How far is it to the eastern tip of the development? Well, that's about 2500, 2600 feet. So I can answer those point to point distance questions very quickly, easily, and visually. I don't have to write the number down or sketch it or anything, it's right there on the model, it's very obvious to whoever's looking exactly what distance I'm measuring. Right down to the fact that you may notice that I'm measuring along a slope. This isn't a horizontal distance, which is what you might be used to if you're used to working in a CAD environment. This is a true slope distance, from this elevation way up to this one, the amount of walking that I would do in a straight line from that point to that point, is in this case 1628 feet. So it's important to point out that this is a slope distance. All right, so what can we use the path distance tool for? Well let's say we're in the same meeting where the person asks distance to the ocean, they now want to know how long of a distance will a resident need to travel to get to the clubhouse, and there may be a question about whether we allow residents to cut through the yards to the clubhouse, or are we gonna provide maybe a sidewalk or a public access, or are we going to make people walk down the road or drive down the road to get to the clubhouse? Well, in phase one, anyway, we can give our folks in the meeting a good idea of just how long of a walk or drive that will be, so I'll choose the Path Distance tool and I'll pick out the furthest home from the clubhouse, which would be this one, and starting right at the front steps I'll come out to the street and just simulate walking or driving down the street, and as I click each point, InfraWorks 360 is summing up all the little individual segments and telling me the total. So right now if I were to walk from that furthest home to the front steps of the clubhouse, I'm looking at about a 2,000 foot walk. Of course not quite half a mile. So it just depends on who you are whether that's a long distance or not, but the important thing is that I can answer the question. So now you know how easy it is to take measurements in your InfraWorks 360 model. I am confident that the two commands we just covered are going to come in very handy for you again and again.

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