topic Measurement tool graphics visibility settings in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Measurement tool graphics visibility settings

MariusPaulikas — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:13:42 GMT

Good morning,

My question is whether ArcGIS Pro permits the drawn graphics of the measurement tool to remain visible while creating or editing features? Our current version (3.3.0.) does not appear to permit these settings.

My colleagues and I work for the water and engineering divisions of a city municipality, and so we frequently digitize new infrastructure features (e.g. water lines). We often conduct measurements to identify where a new feature needs to be created on Pro, but we run into some difficulty when the measurement tool graphic (the dashed line) disappears while switching to create the feature.

Is this capability something that ESRI can make available if it has not already?

Thank you

Marius Paulikas

Re: Measurement tool graphics visibility settings

JonM32 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:54:25 GMT

@MariusPaulikas

This isn't a capability of the measurement tool currently in ArcGIS Pro.

A workaround would be to use the editing tools available after you place your first vertex for a feature. Say you are drawing a line, place your starting vertex and then right click to open up the menu for editing. You can choose distance, direction, angle, etc from this list to get precise control of where you create your line.

Re: Measurement tool graphics visibility settings

MariusPaulikas — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:21:59 GMT

Thanks for the response - I think what we're looking for is whether we can use the measurement tool graphic to "mark the spot" of where to place the first vertex down of a feature we wish to create. Though I understand (per your response) a workaround can be to place a vertex of a dummy layer and then use edit vertices to create the appropriate length of measurement. If that's the best we can probably work with for the time being, I'll go ahead and mark it as a solution. Thank you - Marius

Re: Measurement tool graphics visibility settings

JonM32 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:39:06 GMT

@MariusPaulikas

No problem! That's what I usually do for features. Entering the distance/angle after the first one works nicely.

Re: Measurement tool graphics visibility settings

JenniferCadkin — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:13:44 GMT

To add on to @JonM32 answer, you can use Dynamic Constraints when creating new line and polygon features to view and edit the direction and distance of a fsegment.

https://doc.esri.com/en/arcgis-pro/latest/help/editing/enable-dynamic-constraints.html