I have been noticing this issue lately where I try to measure the distance between a cylinder or circular edge and a face (for example, between a hole and a flange of a sheet metal part) and the Measure tool will not display a "normal distance".  It will just give me Delta X, Delta Y, Delta Z, and Distance.  If this is a sheet metal part, like I described, there will typically be an additional offset associated with the bend radius before the face officially begins. 

If the faces align with the coordinate system, it is usually obvious what the dimension is, but that is frequently not the case, especially in an assembly environment.

My options in this case would be:

- Turn on temporary axes, measure from axis (and obtain a Normal distance, as I would expect)

- Measure to another point, such as the end of the flange, then measure from THERE to the face in question, and do the arithmetic

- Use the Pythagorean Theorem with my X and Y distances to get the value I actually want

Why can't the measure tool give me a Normal distance in this case??  Is it possible there is a setting that might be controlling this?  I honestly can't think of any acceptable reason why the software cannot measure this distance on its own, or why SW would think I would NOT want a normal distance between a cylinder and plane.