Ellipse

The Ellipse tool provides measurements for the major and minor axis lengths of an ellipse roughly aligned to the part's shape in the XY plane, and also for the ratio of the major and minor axis lengths and for the orientation angle of the ellipse. The tool is typically used to find the general orientation of a part, for example, potatoes on a conveyor that are longer in one dimension than the other.

Note that the ellipse fit is not the minimum area ellipse around the data. (Technically, it is the ellipse with matching moments as the data.) For surfaces with no holes, this results in an ellipse approximately the same size and orientation of the part. But for surfaces with holes, the resulting ellipse can be larger than the part.

2D View

3D View

Measurement Panel

For information on adding, managing, and removing tools and measurements, as well as detailed descriptions of settings common to most tools, see Tools Panel.

Measurements, Features, and Settings

Measurements

Measurement	Illustration
Major Determines the major axis length of an ellipse fitted to the part's area in the XY plane.
Minor Determines the minor axis length of an ellipse fitted to the part's area in the XY plane.
Ratio Determines the minor/major axis ratio of an ellipse fitted to the part's area in the XY plane.
Z Angle Determines the orientation angle of an ellipse fitted to the part's area in the XY plane.

Features

Type	Description
Center Point	The center point of the fitted ellipse.
Major Axis	A line representing the major axis of the fitted ellipse.
Minor Axis	A line representing the minor axis of the fitted ellipse.

For more information on geometric features, see Geometric Features.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
Source	The sensor, or combination of sensors, that provides data for the tool's measurements. For more information, see Source.
Asymmetry Detection	Resolves the orientation of an object over 360 degrees. The possible values are: 0 – None 1 – Along Major Axis 2 – Along Minor Axis
Region	The region to which the tool's measurements will apply. For more information, see Regions.
Filters	The filters that are applied to measurement values before they are output. For more information, see Filters.
Decision	The Max and Min settings define the range that determines whether the measurement tool sends a pass or fail decision to the output. For more information, see Decisions.

Anchoring

Anchor	Description
X, Y, or Z	Lets you choose the X, Y, or Z measurement of another tool to use as a positional anchor for this tool.
Z angle	Lets you choose the Z Angle measurement of another tool to use as an angle anchor for this tool.

A measurement must be enabled in the other tool for it to be available as an anchor. The anchor measurement should also be properly configured before using it as an anchor.

For more information on anchoring, see Measurement Anchoring.