And now that in 2.43 you can set the grid divisions to English measures and such people should just get over this “fault” in Blender .
Could you point me to a link that discusses this attribute?
Anything below this is assumption. Don’t take anything as absolute truth or fact. I’m philosophizing Blender
Let me see if I’m understanding you correctly:
I can create an environment for set variables and constants. From there, I can’t change those set variables without screwing EVERYTHING up. If I want some other standard for measurements of higher or lower scaled proportions, then I need to create another document?
For example, I can have units that I can treat as if they were atomic measurements, but I can’t really start manipulating those units to act as miles. I can have units within a seperate environment that I can treat as if they were yards, but I can’t treat them as if they were centimeters. If I tried doing that, the proportions and scaling according to the plane and grid would not be correct, because the grid planes are at a set, virtual unit of measurement.
In other words, an environment with a 2x4 piece of wood created by 1 Blender-unit squares (which in this environment are acting as feet) isn’t going to be able to create a molecule of deoxyribose nucleic acid because the environment is not going to take that 1 blender-unit square and bring it down to a fraction of its current dimensions (virtually, idealistically turning the BUs–which are conceptually and currently standardized at 1 ft–into 1 Angstrom unit).
So, in an environment, I have a choice of what ideal units I’m going to use. I can’t have meters and miles if I want feet. I can only have feet. I can’t have inches, because I’m only allowed one type of unit. I’m not allowed to have two conceptual types of units within a document. If I want to conceptualize and draw with a different unit of measurement, then I need another document.
In conclusion, one ideal unit of measurement per document. Right?
If (document),
then Blender unit = desired unit.
However, only one desired unit is allowed per document, because the blender unit must stay constant.
If blender unit = feet
and blender unit can only equal one measurement
then trying to use inches would make all foot long objects divided by 12.
Proportions would be incorrect.
foot = BU = 1:1 ratio
if BU converted to inches
1 inch : 1 inch ratio becomes 1 inch : 12 inch ratio (a foot long object becomes one 12th of its size)
an new item that was 3 inches (3 inches : 12 inches) becomes looks as though it is three feet ( 36 inchs : 12 inches) because of the new unit adjustment
Proportions are false. (and they wouldn’t look right)
Hmm. Well, if this is true, then I assume the millimeter would be the best bet for most household things. One must predict and account for his or her ideal, desired unit based on the current proportions he or she is working with.
Maybe if there were a way to mix formatting settings of blender documents and customized setting without and overlapping and constant and proportions, then a person could set these things to work just right.
Possibly another problem is that a person has to round to the nearest whole number. Is that correct? It’s impossible to get .75 of a blender unit. Therefore, a person has to 1 blender unit. Instead of 2.78943, a person must use 3 blender units.
Interesting. Therefore, depending on the size of objects being done, the unit of measurement would be taken into great consideration. The smaller the measurement, the better–but probably more time consuming.
The fact that a unit must stay constant creates a constraint when creating detailed models of things. I suppose for Blender, using units as decently small units based on one’s environment of design would allow for the decent creation of something. However, the constraints limit the effectiveness of this program to be used for CAD.
If I’m seeing all of this correctly, I figure Blender will work for architecture and CAD if a person is using very small measurements and predicts the best measurement unit for the design. Because of the constraints, getting exact measurements is impossible. A person would have to round the numbers to whole number integers. For engineering and other complex designs, I wouldn’t think Blender to be a wise idea. However, if I’m correct, it would not a bad one for making a virtual design. Yet if it isn’t going to be exact in the end, I figure it’s better to put it on paper.
I guess if I’m not going to design things for research and development, then building detailed things isn’t much of a worry in Blender.
It would be pretty difficult to take an original design and convert it into Blender, because a person can use only one virtual type of unit at a time. And to use units, such as angstroms, to create an object–such as a delorean–would take LOTS and LOTS of time or work. Maybe the computer couldn’t handle it. Because of the time vs. work thing, it’d be quicker to do stuff in an engineering program.
