Problem using inches for furniture modeling

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hello all. :slight_smile:
First time actually using Blender and it is for furniture modeling. Unfortunately I need to use inches. Moreover it would be nice if I could also use fractions, by which I mean halves, fourth, eight, sixteenth and thirty-seconds of an inch, nice but not absolutely necessary. Believe me I’d be much happier if I could use metric but I can’t.

The problem is that Blender does not stick to the preset “Inches” and introduces other units from the Imperial system that aren’t adapted to the purpose but just add confusion. Those are namely feet, mils and thou. Is there any way to avoid this and stick to inches and fractions thereof ?

Thank a lot for your time and help.

#2

you could try to use 2.8
there has been some new features for unit which allow to work with only inches
for instance but not certain about the fraction thing!

but could also be in latest build for 2.79 check it out!

happy bl

#3

My problem was with 2.79; I should have mentioned that.
Fortunately you are right about 2.80 beta: almost every funny behavior has been ironed out. The only strangeness left is that it still displays decimals as thou. For example 84.5 inches show in the Properties (Nkey) as 84" 500thou.
I could live with that.
My settings in the Properties editor are:
Unit System: Imperial
Unit Scale: 1.000000 (automatically, which is a bit strange, isn’t it?)
Length: Inches

So, this is great Ricky that I can manage this way.

Regards,
DoM

#4

as I said it could also included in the latest build for 2.79 on buildbot
or blender org

I saw the 1/1000 fraction in N panel !

now you could also change the scale to some other fraction
like multiple of 1/16 or other but have to calculate it
but won’t show in N Panel

i’m gone asks for adding these inches fraction in 2.8!

but I doubt it will be added it is too close to CAD system
and that does not go well for the artist thing for blender!
so I doubt it will be added

happy bl

#5

@DreamOfMore, Additionally, if you are using Advanced Mode for numeric input (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/precision/numeric_input.html) in 2.79, you can use expressions that may help you use fractions of inches in your models. If you wanted to make an object 5 7/16" long, you could dial in its dimensions in the Properties panel by typing that the X dimension is 5in + 7/16in, and Blender will resolve that to 5.4375". I know it sucks a little that if you type in 48in, 2.79 will convert that to 4’, but hopefully you can move to 2.80 sooner than later!