Cartesian vs Caliper Distance

[[Ol...]]

Hi there,

Which is better for measuring the simple distance between two planes? I am getting different values for both.

Thank you,

Ollie.
THORLABS

[[Ri...]]

Depends on a lot of things.

Cartesian Distance should be your first choice when performing a distance between two planes. But what if the planes are tiny, and far away from each other? Then you will start to see issues.

The Caliper Distance creates a linear distance between two features based on a coordinate system. That is important to remember because what if the planes aren't parallel to the axis of the coordinate system?

[[Ol...]]

Great, thank you 🙂

[[Ha...]]

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4791

[[sc...]]

We’re getting different results measuring two planes’ distances with using the caliper vs cartesian methods.
The planes are small and approximately 10.5 inches apart.
I did review the 8-5-2021 “Cartesian vs Caliper Distance” post and the Caliper method would be recommended for this situation?

[[Ri...]]

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Cartesian Distance between two Planes works well when at least one of them is suitable for a Spatial Rotation, or the distance between them is rather small compared to their size.

In your case, Caliper Distance might be a better tool. You say that they are small Planes, so say they are 0.25"x0.25" and 10.5" apart, that would probably cause me to look at Caliper Distance over Cartesian Distance.

Just remember that Caliper Distance, as well as Simple Distance require an alignment for the distance to be calculated according to. By default it will use the Base Alignment, but you can use any alignment you'd like. Just ensure that the alignment used is setup properly to give you the correct distances.

[[Je...]]

When using caliper distance remember to choose min/ max/ center correctly. I always forget that 🫣