Units + Tempo= Wierdness
9 messages in this thread
Most of the work we do is in decimal feet. Because of this, most of the time,
I don't bother to set Units — decimal feet look just like the (default)
decimal inches on the status line, so why bother. Besides, coming from a
background in AutoCAD, a unit is a unit, whether you call it a foot or an inch
is not a big deal.
Never did I have so much as a single misaligned Merge (well, maybe one) until I
had set the tracks for the three-hundredth object in our first big project
using Tempo…
For Tempo to properly read the velocity of objects in MPH, it was necessary to
set units from inches to decimal FEET before running the IPAS. However, woe
was I when I tried to merge that file into the master scene! JUMBO! Okay, so
I set my units in the master to feet, merge the file and it worked.
But later, stranger things started happening: things came in at a new micro,
micro scale, things came across at a strange "middle" scale… Boy! It has
been getting really confusing to track all these scales!
A unit in AutoCAD is still a unit, no matter what you call it. But lately, my
3D Studio files have been self scaling their units during merges. My roadways
that are twelve units wide become 240 units when I merge them in with Units
set to feet….
I WANT TO GO BACK TO A WORLD WHERE: ONE= ONE UNIT!
!!!HELP!!!
Where did I go wrong?
Do tracks embedded with Tempo carry scale info?
Has 3D Studio always done this?
Or, did I just get 0.082666 times smaller (0.0825 in 3DS)?
Donald Newlands
Donald,
<< units on merges… >>
Thanks for the heads up. I haven't tried this yet.
Before I get scolded for not reading the manual, I will jump in and say that I
read the manual on Units Setup and what I found is NOT A BUG. Swift, silent,
unprompted scaling and coversion of units on Load and Merge is a !@#$%
feature!!!
The incidents that I reported are not related to Tempo and I recant any
suggestion that Tempo might be other than the fine and indespensible product
that it is. HOWEVER, I am still in shock that after using 3D Studio since
version 1 that I never noticed that 3D STUDIO DOES NOT TREAT UNITS THE SAME WAY
AS AUTOCAD!!!
Try this at home:
1) Draw something at a known size
2) Change units from inches to feet or vice versa
3) Save the 3DS, LFT or SHP file
4) Merge the file back and your drawing will have gotten much bigger or
smaller depending on what you did with the units.
The units are converted when the file is loaded or merged.
This would be a handy feature for converting english to metric, engineering to
architectural scales etc. HOWEVER, it seems completely out-of-character for
3DS to do this unprompted and only during the load.
So, now I have two new wishlist suggestions:
a) How about an alert box that the scale in the drawing has changed and the
units are about to be converted?
b) Why not have the scale conversion take place immediately rather than having
it take place only during the next load?
Thanks,
Donald Newlands
Hi Donald,
<< a) How about an alert box that the scale in the drawing has changed and the
units are about to be converted?
b) Why not have the scale conversion take place immediately rather than having
it take place only during the next load? >>
Both of these are very good wish items that will be taken under
consideration…
jonas[adesk]
If it's any consolation, the DXF -> 3DS translation inside InterChange doesn't
perform any scaling. We are forced to perform scaling on some objects destined
for formats such as Imagine, which uses fixed-point binary and a relatively
small maximum world-space, so large objects must be shrunk to fit.
On the other hand, if someone can tell me why it might be a good idea to shrink
models on import, we can always add it as a an option!
Hello John,
I have been doing lost of DXF -> 3DS translations, and I do have a
reason to shrink the dxf file. I am using Terrainman on my Mac to generate
sequential DXF animations of facial expressions. I scan the faces from my
drawings, then convert them im Photoshop to grayscale gradient .PICT files.
Then Terrainman makes a mesh and I bring it into my IBM over Mac to PC link. I
need fine meshes to make good faces, but the meshes all need to be scales way
down to fit on my character's faces. It is hard to get them all the same size
when I scale them inside 3DS. If I could set the scale size as I brought them
in, they wouldn't pump up and down in size when I animate the faces. The
expressions look great! Much better than animated texture maps I tried before.
How 'bout it?
Hopefully, Sanford
John,
I just wrote a reply about sizing sequential DXF's for animated meshes
as you import them. I use them for facial expressions and they must all be
scaled and fitted to the figure's face. Any change in size ruins the animation.
I would use this feature a lot!.
Funny thing, I wrote the message, posted it and it was gone? Gremlins
ate it, I guess. I will give you a longer explanation of my "animated DXF's"
face trick if you are really willing to add sacling (scaling of size) to DXF
import in 3DS.
Sanford
>>Funny thing, I wrote the message, posted it and it was gone? Gremlins ate
>>it, I guess.
Sanford:
Your high-message number is reset to avoid your having to re-read stuff you've
already read. Your message is still there.
Dave
Thanks David,
But I'm almost certain I heard an evil gremlin laugh when I looked for
my message (g)
Sanford