Polygon

The Polygon option allows you to draw an arbitrary, closed polygon consisting of any number of line segments. A Polygon can also be used to determine areas. To add a Polygon

1. Select Polygon from the toolbar or the Add Tool sub-menu of the Tools menu.
2. Enter points graphically with the mouse, or enter x,y coordinates in the prompt line.
The Snap options are available in the right-click menu if you want to snap exactly to certain coordinates
3. When you have entered the last vertex of the polygon, right-click and select Done or press Enter. The last vertex will automatically be connected to the first vertex, to close the polygon, and the polygon will be added to the view.

After a Polygon has been added, it can be moved, re-sized, formatted, copied etc. For example, the inside of the polygon can be filled with colour or a hatch pattern. See the Edit Tools Overview topic for details.

Area Measurement

A useful feature of the Polygon drawing tool option, is that the area of the polygon is automatically calculated, and can be displayed as a Data Tip. To view the area:

1. Make sure the Data Tips option is on (either Min or Max).
2. Hover the mouse over the polygon, and the area of the polygon will be displayed as a popup Data Tip.

This allows you to easily determine the area of any part of a model, by simply drawing a Polygon object around the area.