Screen Scales

Screen Scales is a rather interesting and unusual application. It can create several markers on your computer screen and measure the distance between them.

The markers are mobile so you can drag them to any portion of the screen. You can add a lot more and even create complex contours. You start up with two connected points and you can add as many other lines as you want. Even go off screen because the application supports dual monitor displays.

To add a new point you need to right-click on an existing one and select the add point option which creates a new point at the end of the string. In the same way, you can remove a point only this time, the one you right click is the one that is removed and not the one at the end. You do however need to be careful with the point removing option as there is no undo for it. Once you delete it, it stays that way.

Screen Scales becomes even more interesting when you toggle deltas, accumulative totals and angles. Once these are activated, every line you add becomes the hypotenuse for triangles that have all the dimensions and angles displayed. This makes Screen Scales a very powerful and precise measuring tool. Even with these details toggled, you can still move the points anywhere on the screen and the values are automatically updated in real-time.

Besides being able to measure various graphical elements within designs, Screen Scales has another use that fits it even better. The application also provides you with a custom scale factor that let’s you set the value for one unit of measurement. This feature works perfect in situations when you have a scanned map and want to measure actual distances on it. To make spotting the lines, angles and values better over different backgrounds, the application also enables you to change the colors.

Screen Scales is a tool for which you can definitely find many uses, both simple and complex. And it’s comprehensive nature makes it all that more practical.