Taking measurements from a CAD drawing used to mean downloading the file, opening it in a separate CAD application, and working from there. You can now measure directly inside the IPX CAD viewer — no additional software needed.
Distance measurement lets you click any two points on a drawing to get the straight-line distance between them. The result appears as a labeled blue line overlaid on the canvas. Area measurement lets you trace a room or region by clicking its corners and double-clicking to close the shape — the viewer calculates and displays the area in square feet. Both types stay visible as you pan and zoom, and labels track the canvas at full frame rate.
Precision matters when measuring from drawings, so two snapping behaviors are on by default. OSNAP snaps your cursor to entity endpoints, midpoints, and centers as you click — so when you click near a wall corner, you land exactly on it rather than a pixel or two off. Ortho-lock straightens lines that are within 8° of horizontal or vertical, so a nearly-horizontal dimension snaps to perfectly horizontal rather than recording a small but misleading angle.
All your measurements for a session collect in the floating measurements panel in the top-right corner of the viewer. From there you can dismiss individual measurements or clear all of them at once with the Clear button in the toolbar. Measurements persist for the duration of your session; they reset when you close or reload the viewer.
The measurement tools are available anywhere you can view a CAD file on the platform, including on shared links — so you can hand a link to a teammate or client and they can measure from it directly without needing their own CAD software.
A few things to know: measurements reflect what's drawn, not necessarily what was built. For verified as-built dimensions, the BIMIT model remains the authoritative source. If the viewer fails to load a drawing, a Try Again button will appear so you can reload without refreshing the page.