Is it possible to reset Cura from mm to inches?

[ahoeben 1,948]

A new version of the Mesh Tools plugin is now available in the Marketplace, which lets you set a unit for STL, OBJ and PLY files:

[Kazymandias 0]

On 6/13/2019 at 6:51 AM, geert_2 said:

 

I thought all countries world-wide had switched to the metric system?

 

The UK has switched gradually, with the latest units changed around the year 2000, I think? Today in the UK the old imperial units are only allowed for "drinking and driving", as one Englishman said on another forum. (=for road signs and beer bottle labels). But correct me if this info is incorrect.  🙂

 

In fact, no country on the planet has voluntarily switched to metric, because for normal human beings it's inferior to, say, the Imperial system.

 

The only thing "better" about it is the conversion of units, but in reality almost nobody outside of government bureaucracy and engineering/science converts units often, if at all.

 

In every other way, the Imperial system is better. It has major units closer to those natural to use, and tends to be binary instead of decimal, so that even sub-units are generally closer to what someone needs at any given time.

 

Even when it comes to conversion, the main problem is bureaucrats too stupid to be able to do math if it's not a simple decimal system. And it's a damned shame that our numeric system is decimal, instead of some power of two, like hexadecimal, or at least base 12.

 

Because of this, each country only "switched" when the soulless state bureaucrats pushed their corrupt political class to force people to switch. Otherwise, people would have continued using the system that works better for them. In the US, there is no state power to force people to switch...fortunately.

[neute 16]

LOL american egocentrism is really remarkable. It's one thing to stick to horseriding when the rest of the world has agreed to use cars (there might be "good" reasons for it - having the infrastructure or just doing it because it's always been done)! But to tell oneself and others, that it's the only way and everyone else is an idiot (for driving a car because they have to buy gas and can't even grow their own horsefeed) or they're only doing it because they're not Free(TM) and forced by their government - that is truly, truly remarkable.

[ahoeben 1,948]

I'm imagining the glorious disaster of everybody commuting by horse, and huge multi-story stables instead of parking garages. As a european, I would probably still prefer that to cars though.

[neute 16]

yeah that's probably where this analogy doesn't work any more, since I can't really find any downsides to the metric system. Maybe that kids don't learn fractions as early on as they probably do in the US, but then, why should they...

[Kazymandias 0]

11 hours ago, neute said:

LOL american egocentrism is really remarkable. It's one thing to stick to horseriding when the rest of the world has agreed to use cars (there might be "good" reasons for it - having the infrastructure or just doing it because it's always been done)! But to tell oneself and others, that it's the only way and everyone else is an idiot (for driving a car because they have to buy gas and can't even grow their own horsefeed) or they're only doing it because they're not Free(TM) and forced by their government - that is truly, truly remarkable.

When the state FORCES you do to a thing, that's not freedom...no matter how much your masters tell you otherwise.

[Kazymandias 0]

10 hours ago, neute said:

yeah that's probably where this analogy doesn't work any more, since I can't really find any downsides to the metric system. Maybe that kids don't learn fractions as early on as they probably do in the US, but then, why should they...

I already named a number of down-sides. Metric's units are poorly spaced, in order to work on powers of ten. Imperial's units are binary, leaving units close to whatever size you want. Ironically, even with the wider spacing, the choices in metric are so poor that most of them are ignored. Nobody uses decimeters, or hectometers. 

 

Essentially, Imperial evolved to have units that are maximally convenient, while metric was set up by short-sighted bureaucrats who thought that unit conversion...irrelevant to most people...was the only criterion relevant. 

 

It's much as if everyone had been forced to use Beta, because the "experts" said it was better, when in fact VHS was superior in all the ways that mattered to normal people.  

[neute 16]

11 hours ago, Kazymandias said:

I already named a number of down-sides. Metric's units are poorly spaced, in order to work on powers of ten. Imperial's units are binary, leaving units close to whatever size you want. Ironically, even with the wider spacing, the choices in metric are so poor that most of them are ignored. Nobody uses decimeters, or hectometers. 

 

Essentially, Imperial evolved to have units that are maximally convenient, while metric was set up by short-sighted bureaucrats who thought that unit conversion...irrelevant to most people...was the only criterion relevant. 

 

It's much as if everyone had been forced to use Beta, because the "experts" said it was better, when in fact VHS was superior in all the ways that mattered to normal people.  

let's agree to disagree instead of engaging in a pointless keyboard fight*.

 

For metric users, you're quoting non-issues. Engineers will use millimeters, woodworkers will use centimeters, builders will use meters or (decimal) fractions thereof, but everybody understands each other without issue, and calculate between units (nobody needs to remember how many inches are in a foot, how many ounces are in a quart, how many bananas there are in a bathtub - am I doing this right? 😄 ). Nobody uses decimeters, but they aren't forced upon anyone, they're just there because how the decimal system works.

 

And if the whole world had agreed to use metric instead of the whole world minus one or two countries, this thread wouldn't exist.

 

*and that's all I'm going to add to this before I have to face allegations of nourishing the online goblin

[jasonrohrer 8]

This perennial "great taste" vs "less filling" argument is entertaining.

 

But the fact of the matter is that in the US, it is impossible to walk into a hardware store and purchase a metric tape measure.

 

In fact, I've never seen a metric tape measure with my own eyes.

 

Most of our "desktop rulers," for art or drafting, have both cm and in.  And our glass measuring cups for cooking have both ml and oz.  But those are the only places that the metric system occurs in everyday life in the US.

 

My non-electronic Starrett calipers, which I use for engineering projects, are in inches only.

 

It hasn't changed since 1790, and there's no sign of it changing any time soon.

 

As for why it won't change, people who use the old system seem to like it.

 

Esperanto is also a "better" language than English---but like the metric system, it has no soul.

[crankyjoe 0]

Hi RikChik:

While Geert2 seems to know a lot about....a lot, He doesn't know much about the US. The Convention du Mètre that the US signed on to in 1875 was not an adoption of the metric system, but a recognition of an international body to regulate and maintain metric standards. The USA has always used the imperial system of measurement including; Gallons, Miles, Pounds, and Inches. There has never been an official adoption of the metric system by the US government for use in the US.

In 1975, under president Jimmy Carter,  Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act, an attempt to make the conversion that was flatly rejected by the populous and ultimately abandoned.

 

I know it is an inconvenience for the rest of the world, but so probably is the currency by which petroleum is traded (US dollars).

 

[GregValiant 1,246]

I'm in the US.  For the better part of 55 years I was a designer in a drafting shop scribbling up automotive assembly tooling.

Metric measurements showed up in about 1980 and everyone complained because they had to go and get new scales.  Even then, a 600mm (call it 2 feet) engraved scale was about $50.  

If you pull out a tape measure you will see that many have metric on one edge and imperial on the other edge.  These two and the carpenters tri-square were purchased at ACO Hardware numerous years ago,

 

I suppose we could go back to cubits.  That wouldn't be quite as bad as going back to Lucas Electric.

[Slashee_the_Cow 263]

4 hours ago, GregValiant said:

I suppose we could go back to cubits.  That wouldn't be quite as bad as going back to Lucas Electric.

Ha! For such a comment I will gift you ten drams of mead.