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Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...


mcgyvr

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Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

As a metric guy I would not like to be bothered with questions about if it could be meant to be in inches when loading a small object to be printed with e.g. a 0.25mm or 0.15mm.

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    Being nice to the user is the best feature of all. Being observant is even better. It's very simple to think ahead for the user and predict and give what I call digital empathy. For example, people loved the smartphone because of the silly features like rubber band scrolling.

     

    @SkyKorp and any others asking for imperial unit support: You can stop asking as Cura will support the 3mf format which includes the unit from next official version on. There you will have your auto-conversion. Keeping the assumption that STL is in mm is ok for me as it is like this in 99% of all cases.

     

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    • 11 months later...
    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    What date will the next official version be released that supports the inches or mm unit selection?

    What will the version number be?

    FYI: For me the default is inches 99% of the time

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    Check marketplace. Look for Babarian Units 😉

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    The whole world has switched to the metric system officially, so I think we should stay with the metric system. And not go back to medieval units that don't work well in high-tech environments, no matter how much sentiment there is in it.

     

    I grew up with "horsepower" for car engines, which now has changed to kilowatt. I regret this, because the horsepower-number is higher and thus more impressive than kW, and because I grew up with it, but kW makes calculations sooooo much easier. No more weird random conversion factors.

     

    The USA has switched to metric in 1875 (yes, 18...), although some politicians and press are still not aware of this, and the UK has switched more recently. Asia is metric since long (except a few former British colonies), and it is quickly becoming the dominant world power. As soon as they have enough power, I am very sure they will enforce the metric system even in the aviation industry, the only industry that currently is still partially imperial (and then even with a bizarre mix of British and US units, and metric, causing confusion and accidents: some time ago a plane ran out of fuel and crashed, killing all souls on board, after confusing metric and imperial fuel units when refueling).

     

    If we don't want to be left behind, I think going fully metric is the only option, even though it might hurt our sentiments.

     

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    So true...

    Guess, there are still some areas left. 🙂 E.g. circuit boards and a lot of components.

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    Are you really rehashing this topic?

     

    The ultimaker community is not the driving force behind what units are used in the world. You are punishing the users for something they may have no control or influence over.

     

    but go ahead and promote dimensional righteousness via melted plastic.

     

     

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    Who do you mean? Keep calm...

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...
    1 hour ago, DivingDuck said:

    Who do you mean? Keep calm...

    those who relegated the users of inches to barbarian status... I'm calm, just annoyed.

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    Posted (edited) · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    I don't know about you guys.

     

    But the bed on my printer is not much bigger than the maximum range of a caliper, I recently had something I had to copy and print a new one of and my caliper wasn't big enough to give it in MM so I tried measuring it in inches, converting, etc. 

     

    It ended up too short on one side. But that is the ONLY case I've ever had where I needed to 3D print something that big.

     

    I agree with the idea of doing Metric, I grew up in Denmark so I learned Metric, then I came to the US and started doing Engineering and had to learn it all over again then I started 3D printing and modelling and then I had to re-learn Metric. 

     

    But having done both, I prefer Metric just for the reason that the numbers make more sense, if I'm measuring wall thickness of something or want to determine it, it's a lot easier to say, "Hmm, about 3 MM ought to do it" than to say "Hmm, about 0.11811" ought to do it"

     

    I mean, come on, it's just ridiculous at that point, sure, you could say 0.1" you could, but I find it harder to think with. Much less clearances when printing bolts or nuts or threaded holes, or even just doing intricate detailed parts with very specific spacing, gears, etc. 

     

    That's just my take on it. I'm not advocating everyone does Metric but if you are going to 3D print something, I seriously doubt it needs to be much bigger than a caliper at most times, so buy the $20 one from Harbor freight which gives you fractions, MM and inches, that's what I use but instead of wearing out the unit measurement button, I just re-learned metric and now I use that when modeling for 3D prints. 

     

    Then I turn around and build something out of metal and I do inches, there's no reason you can't do both, for bigger stuff, I think inches is easier, but for smaller stuff, Metric is easier as you can think with it because the numbers are simpler.

     

    That's my 2 cents.

    Edited by Oliveros
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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    I worked most time of my life for international companies. From a professional view we use in all projects across all cultures what ever system was needed and simply did the conversion math if needed without any further discussions.

     

    I'm still wondering about some rare situations where people raise a discussion for or against a measurement system these days. In real life we have different systems and standards for different areas. The committed standard for 3D-Sclicer in this area is metric. The only missing point for me is, that there are still a lot of designs around w/o mentioning, that they choose to use a non standard measurement unit (what they can do whenever they want). The good thing is, people start mention it now.

     

    Back to the topic, there was a user who wrote a plugin for helping people not to do the math themselves. He makes it free available and as owner he is free to name it how ever he want - as well as people like myself are free to use or ignore the plugin.

     

    BTW, I am not the one who wrote it, but I gave the answer where to find the plugin and what name it has - maybe a wrong decision? No.

     

    🙂

     

     

     

     

     

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    barbarian_units.thumb.PNG.66b18c8b198c4327a264332e53df2d14.PNG

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    Posted (edited) · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...
    On 12/28/2019 at 1:20 PM, y8s said:

    Are you really rehashing this topic?

     

    The ultimaker community is not the driving force behind what units are used in the world. You are punishing the users for something they may have no control or influence over.

     

    but go ahead and promote dimensional righteousness via melted plastic.

     

     

    The community is not, but I do believe that you should be the change that you want in the world. So thats why I made the barbarian plugin. Partially as a joke (hence the name), partially to also somewhat solve the issue users are having (all the while triggering them to switch to the right system).

     

    Adding inches on everything in Cura (so all the settings) would be a complete and utter nightmare. We're easily talking about months of full time development work. Once it's done, it will also significantly complicate the maintenance of the software, so there is also a long tail that makes this even more expensive.

     

    If you want to keep storing your stuff in inches, use 3MF, since that actually allows you to set the unit. Cura will just handle that fine.

     

    So tl:dr; Part of the reason is dimensional righteousness, part of it is cost (aka; we have better things to do).

    ps. If you don't mind, I am going to use dimensional righteousness as a term now. I think it's rather fitting!

    Edited by nallath
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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...
    4 hours ago, nallath said:

    The community is not, but I do believe that you should be the change that you want in the world. So thats why I made the barbarian plugin. Partially as a joke (hence the name), partially to also somewhat solve the issue users are having (all the while triggering them to switch to the right system).

     

    Adding inches on everything in Cura (so all the settings) would be a complete and utter nightmare. We're easily talking about months of full time development work. Once it's done, it will also significantly complicate the maintenance of the software, so there is also a long tail that makes this even more expensive.

     

    If you want to keep storing your stuff in inches, use 3MF, since that actually allows you to set the unit. Cura will just handle that fine.

     

    So tl:dr; Part of the reason is dimensional righteousness, part of it is cost (aka; we have better things to do).

    ps. If you don't mind, I am going to use dimensional righteousness as a term now. I think it's rather fitting!

    haha as long as I get credit for coining it.

     

    Conversion via plugin is fine. I can print in mm units without issue. it's really only an annoyance when I open a small part that I need scaled. the rest is fine.

     

    my brain works fine in mm. it's the bosses and customers and their customers that are the true barbarian kings.

     

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    Posted · Any plans to support importing models in Inches,etc...

    I just installed Cura 4.8 and was looking at plugins and saw the infamous barbarian units plugin was listed many times on the most popular plugins lists. 

     

    Turns out we're quite a horde!

     

    Thanks again--a few years later--to @nallath

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