Measuring Distances and Areas

It is often helpful to measure distances on an image. ViewFinder has a good utility for measuring both distances and areas.

1. To open the measurement utility, click Tools on the toolbar and choose Measure, or simply click measure tool icon on the tool.


2. In order to use the tools in the Measurement tool, the pointer tool icon must be clicked on the ViewFinder main toolbar. Make sure it is.


3. The measure position tool icon tool on the Measurement Tool finds the position of a particular point, and reports the coordinates. Try choosing that tool and clicking once in the main view. Notice that the coordinates for the point you have chosen appear in the dialog.


4. The measure length tool icon tool reports the length of a line that you draw on the screen. Try discovering the length or width of one of the fields in the viewer. To do this, choose the tool then click once in the main view. Next go to another point and click again. You may do this as many times as you want, until you reach the end of the line you wish to measure. At the end, simply double click and the entire length will be reported in the dialog.


5. The last two icons measure the area enclosed in a polygon that you draw. To draw a non-rectangular polygon use the measure polygon area tool icon and choose an area in the same fashion as with the line measurement , double clicking to close the polygon. For a rectangular area use the measure rectangle area tool icon tool to click and drag a rectangle. Use one of these tools to outline an entire section. The area should be about 640 acres.


6. Finally, notice that you can change the units of the measurements by picking a different option from the pulldown menus at the top of the dialog.