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Bounding Box

In one sentence: Display the axis-aligned bounding box dimensions of the selected mesh to check its size and scale.

Overview

Workbench: Mesh
Menu: Mesh → Meshes → Analyze → Boundings info
Command: Mesh_BoundingBox
Shortcut: none

Displays the axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) of the selected mesh, showing the minimum and maximum extents in X, Y, and Z and the overall Width, Depth, and Height.

Intuition

After importing a mesh, the first thing to verify is whether it is at the correct scale. A human-sized part should be roughly 200 mm tall — not 200 inches. The Bounding Box check takes one second and can save hours of debugging incorrect print dimensions.

When to use it

  • After importing a mesh to confirm the scale matches expectations.
  • Before 3-D printing to verify dimensions before slicing.
  • Checking that two meshes are at the same scale before Boolean operations.

Reported values

Value Description
X min / X max Extent in the X direction (mm)
Y min / Y max Extent in the Y direction (mm)
Z min / Z max Extent in the Z direction (mm)
Width X max − X min
Depth Y max − Y min
Height Z max − Z min

Common mistakes and pitfalls

Mesh units are always millimetres

FreeCAD's internal unit is millimetres. If the bounding box shows the wrong scale, the mesh was likely exported in inches or another unit. Use Scale to correct it (e.g., scale by 25.4 for inches → mm).

See also