The Perfect Line?

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hi All,

I’ve searched the forum for a answer to this but continue to be stumped. :-?

I’m trying to draw my apartment (interior) in blender. I went around and measured all the walls for a couple of rooms at least. Now I’m trying to draw a fairly accurate rendition of my place in Blender.

Now the thing that is killing me is that I can’t properly size an edge. Now I know that Blender units don’t have any real world meaning… so I’ve chosen to treat 1 unit = 1 inch.

Some of the things that I have tried include turning on the edge length display, using the scale both with the S key and with the transform widgets. I’ve got one edge (representing a wall) that I want to size to 225 units in length. Using the scale tool, I can make it snap to grid up to a certain extent. At some point I have to release the mouse button because I’m at the edge of the screen, recenter and start scaling again. But at that point I can no longer get solid whole numbers for a measurement on the edge. Why oh why can’t I just click on the line and somehow enter (perhaps by typing) a actual measurement.

Does anybody know a quick and effective way to accomplish this. It’s been a good 10+ years since I used AutoCAD but I recall being able to select a line and alter real coordinates from the command line if I wanted to. Is there anything akin to this in Blender?

#2

Just hit “N” for a “Numbers or Numeric Input” tab.

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#3

Hmnnn, that doesn’t seem to work. I get a Transform Properties dialog, but when I have edges or multiple vertices selected I just get median X,Y,Z. I’m not sure what those numbers mean but they don’t seem to be the same as the measurement of a line.

#4

I get a Transform Properties dialog

You were in object mode

but when I have edges or multiple vertices selected I just get median X,Y,Z. I’m not sure what those numbers mean but they don’t seem to be the same as the measurement of a line.

Just select one vertex at a time and enter its coordinates. If you select multiple coordinates it gives you the average (median) cordinate of the verts you selected. Make sure you have global selected in the numeric entry panel or the coordinates displayed will be those the object had before any object mode transformations you have done.

GreyBeard

#5

I think that gets me on the right track.
What I ended up doing was grabbing one vertex and dragging while aligning to grid. I get it in the ball park, then zoom in so I see the finer grid lines… then adjust the total line length to the correct line length.