To use a scale bar sensibly in Amira, you need to - Switch to orthographic projection (ie where the cube looks like a cube and the scene does not have a vanishing point) - Add a 2D measurement - try to get it as horizontal as possible but you can fix this up later - get the width that you want +/- 0.1 micron - **save the camera status (especially zoom)** - Save a simple network to get some tcl code to play with or edit what's below The key bit in this code is: Measurement $tmp point 0 0.607430 0.301837 0.000000 Measurement $tmp point 1 0.837349 0.301837 0.000000 Don't believe the number of microns that is displayed - zoom in and out and it should change. # add scale bar set hideNewModules 0 dso open hxmeasure create HxMeasureTools Measurement Measurement setIconPosition 511 78 Measurement fire Measurement clearElems set tmp [ Measurement addLine 2D ] Measurement $tmp init Measurement $tmp point 0 0.607430 0.301837 0.000000 Measurement $tmp point 1 0.837349 0.301837 0.000000 Measurement $tmp drawText 0 Measurement $tmp drawTicks 1 Measurement $tmp name {2D Length} Measurement $tmp format {100} Measurement $tmp color 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000 Measurement $tmp pointSize 1.000000 Measurement $tmp fontSize 14.000000 Measurement $tmp locked 0 Measurement $tmp noDepthTest 0 Measurement $tmp visible 1 Measurement $tmp viewerId 0 Measurement $tmp useSpecialValue 0 Measurement $tmp specialValue 0.000000 Measurement fire Measurement setViewerMask 65535 Measurement select Measurement setPickable 1 Note that tcl commands like **Measurement $tmp drawText 0** only work on Amira versions >5.2 Using it - be sure to use the **same** camera definition! proc frontalView { } { viewer setCameraOrientation 0.961736 0.150452 0.228973 2.40614 viewer setCameraPosition 177.847 -14.2337 -92.4693 viewer setCameraFocalDistance 201.708 viewer setCameraNearDistance 46.8413 viewer setCameraFarDistance 319.4 viewer setCameraType orthographic viewer setCameraHeight 166.698 } frontalView Measurement tool0 visible 1 viewer snapshot ${snapshotsFolder}PLoblique_mPNs+fru_with50umbar.png Measurement tool0 visible 0 viewer snapshot ${snapshotsFolder}PLoblique_mPNs+fru.png