How can I adjust the "imperial" units to show fractions of an inch?

Support Basics & Interface
1

I work at a job where I am continuously using fractions of an inch for measurements and I have tried using plain blender units but its a pain in the butt to have to change it to 16 squares when I want 16ths of an inch and then when I scroll out to inches, I have to count the number of inches because of the 16 squares instead of 12 squares per foot… it would be awesome if we had a customize grid feature in blender where we can set up the grid layers…

for example: a box in user prefs to set minimum grid as 16 squares (16ths of an inch), next grid layer is 12 for 12 inches per foot, then next is 3 feet per yard and so on.

Side note: I was looking at the forums and there are a lot of people that have this same problem with the units. If the blender dev team is tired of hearing this, my idea would end the problem once and for all. Fully customizable grid = no more people complaining.

Zach

2

just set unit to imperial then also set seperate units
and then you can in n panel enter values in inches

salutations

3

Ok, so there’s no way to set this to actually show the grid with fractions of an inch instead of it just stopping at inches?

4

grid is set in the n panel !
you could also the scale in world panel or in the panel for the grid

http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/metric-imperial-units.php

5

I appreciate the link and it does explain a lot about the grid system and the settings but unfortunately it does not explain what I need.

I like the inches, feet, yards approach but I want FRACTIONS of an inch… like 5/16ths of an inch, 3/8ths of an inch, etc…

I know I can put this in as a decimal value, but it would be so much easier (and faster) for snapping purposes if the grid would display the fractions of an inch.

Zach

6

you can set scale to inches then set your grid to 8 or 16 then this gives you 1/8 or 1/16 of inches

but grid won’t display numbers in fration like 1/8 but it can be at 1/8 or 1/16 or 1/32 if you want !

salut

7

I don’t need it to display the numbers as a fraction. I’m just wanting it to show the grid smaller than one inch. I don’t know how you set it to inches. I have it set to imperial and the scale is at 1.0.

I can see that there are three cubes inside a cube and this is three feet to a yard… when I zoom in further it shows 12 cubes per foot… and when I zoom in even further there is nothing. No grid or anything. I need there to be a grid there.

I honestly don’t know how else to explain it.

here are some pictures to help describe what I need…

Here you can see the grid showing three feet to a yard:
http://imageshack.us/a/img33/6699/yardsr.th.jpg

Here I have zoomed in so you can see the grid showing twelve inches to a foot:
http://imageshack.us/a/img692/2298/inchesj.th.jpg

Here I have zoomed further and there should be a grid showing parts of an inch but there is nothing:
http://imageshack.us/a/img20/6594/lessthaninches.th.jpg

I hope this helps… Thanks for your help!

Zach

8

set scale in world for 0.0254 this will give you a scale of 1 inch instead of 1 foot

then in N panel set number grid to 8 16 or 32 for 1/8 inch 1/16 or 1/32 inch

should work try this one grid i set for 12 inches / feet

unitest1.blend (358 KB)

now for 1/8 change the grid in n panel with another factor
but the number gives total grid on negative and positive side of the axis!

i’ll see if i can calculate the right values to get grid at 1/8 inch

salutations

9

ok here is one file
with grid set at 1/8 per grid and global world scale is set at 1 inch

unitest2.blend (359 KB)

salutations

10

Thanks Ricky. This helps. I wish I could make it to where the grid showed fractions of an inch without having to change the scaling. I guess that’s something I can ask for in future releases of blender.

Zach

11

you could just change the global scale and grid scale
but you have to do the calculations for the scale factors
but this is a very small scale and not really practical

also from another point of view blender is not really a CAD soft!

salutations

12

Blender cannot display Imperial fractions in any literal sense, i.e. 1/2, 6/11ths etc. They have to be converted to be displayed by a decimal system (which is what Blender uses). This is mentioned in the tutorial Ricky linked to :wink: