Scale measurements

[teknowledgist]

One thing that I often wish I had was an easy way to measure things by scale. It should be a reasonable do-able addition to meazure and would give it a unique feature that other screen measuring tools I've found don't have.

IOW, I have a picture or map where I know the distance of one thing in cm/m/km/in/ft/mi, and I want to know the distance of something else in the picture.

• get the pixel distance
• set the "real world" distance for that
• every subsequent measurement would display both the pixel distance and the "real world" calculated distance.

Also, any chance of "approving" this for Win10?

Thanks.

[baron1405]

Thanks for the request. Unfortunately, I am no longer doing any active development on Meazure or Windows for that matter (don't even own a Windows machine right now). If I pick up development of Meazure in the future, I will address your request.

[endolith]

This sounds similar to what I would like for reading graphs. I'd like to display a graph on the screen, overlay Meazure and anchor it to the corners of the graph (telling it their numerical values), and then it will tell me the value of my cursor in the graph's coordinates.

https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/52990

[baron1405]

Sorry for the long delay but re-reading this request it sounds like you want to try the custom units feature that is already in Meazure.

[endolith]

That requires you to know what the pixels per unit are, though. That would be very tedious for reading graphs

[baron1405]

Point well taken. @endolith and @teknowledgist how about the following new feature to address your needs:

1. Select the Line Tool
2. Position one end of the line at the start of your graph or map scale
3. Position the other end of the line at the end of your graph or map scale
4. Select End > Preferences > Custom Units
5. Next to the text filed for units per pixel is a button to set the field based on the pixel distance along the Line Tool

There is currently only one scale factor so it is assumed x and y use the same factor.

Does this meet you needs?

[endolith]

For me, for one dimensional measurements, the most convenient interface would be a mode in which I can do:

1. Select a specific Tool
2. Position one end of the line at the start of your graph or map scale
3. Enter the value at that point
4. Position the other end of the line at the end of your graph or map scale
5. Enter the value at that point
6. Wherever I hover the mouse pointer, a display shows me what the value is at that point, linearly interpolated or extrapolated from the values at the points I have defined, possibly with an option to copy the value to clipboard.

Even better would be the ability to do this in two dimensions by specifying three corners (and maybe it's slightly faster to pick all the points with the mouse first, and then switch to keyboard and enter all the values, instead of switching back and forth between mouse and keyboard) (and supporting logarithmic axes would be even better)

[teknowledgist]

There is a commercial product, MB-Ruler Pro, that I think can do what you are looking for.

[endolith]

Yes I usually use WebPlotDigitizer but it's a lot more steps. Something to quickly read values directly off the screen would be more convenient

[baron1405]

@endolith and @teknowledgist Thanks again for the explanation of the feature and the pointers to the tools you are currently using to meet your needs. I am especially impressed by MB-Ruler Pro but it made me realize that to properly meet your needs would expand the scope of Meazure beyond where I am ready to take it at this time. Meazure's existing custom units is definitely a simplistic treatment of the problem. However, I do not want to add some clumsy hack that in the end does not meet your needs. At some point I may choose to expand the scope of Meazure to provide full support for multi-dimensional linear and non-linear scaled custom units capture but until then, I appreciate your understanding and (hopefully) continued use of Meazure.