I know I mentioned this a while ago but it is something that costs me a lot of time.
I frequently need to know the "Creepage and clearance distances" between components. SolidWorks only gives me "as the crow flies" distances.
If I put a barrier in the way I then need to be able to make SolidWorks take account of this and work out the distance between the 2 obects without going through the barrier.
Have a look at my simple assembly (not typical of what I normally do!) and tell me how to determine the shortest distance between the two coloured objects.
Must now get on with my real work.
Andy
Interesting question. I don't think you can do that, but just make a sketch somewhere (2d or 3d) with a bunch of straight lines from your start to your end. Then right-click one of the lines and Select Chain then at the bottom in the status bar it will tell you the total length it spans.