Dimensions again

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silvesterde
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Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 9:00 am
Location: Germany
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Dimensions mm -> m -> km

Post by silvesterde »

Hi there,

this is my first day with freecad. Since drawing architecture (15 y), i am using Allplan.

Since then users are frustrated about consistency in the ui; what is supported and what remains buggy for years. Sure, it is a great piece of software, supporting the professional workflow with layers, storeys, 3d-export with hideable layers, templates of sandwich-walls and -roofs, detailed windows etc.
Luckily some things went more editable, data-based, or with xml-feeling. But for its price much of it is not as easy as it could and should be.

So i found freecad and an inspiring speech by yorik.
Now i began drawing and ... crashed after seconds.

Starting as simple as possible, i tried a wall. Dimension-window opened (how do you call these windows?) with values width = 20 m and height = 300 m. This is obviously not useful. So i started to look for standards. Whatever i entered seems to be out of any sense. I attach a screenshot with working values. Look at it: 2,40 mm works as 0,24 m for a standard wall-thickness, and for a normal height of 2,635 m i had to enter 26,35 mm. The conclusion would be dimensions in the standards-windows based on decimeters (dm). How can this be changed? Am i the only one with this problem?

So it would be a great start if i could draw a wall with your help. The rest will be easy ;-)

thanks a lot
Attachments
freecad dim.JPG
freecad dim.JPG (145.9 KiB) Viewed 2900 times
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.4924 (Git)
Python version: 2.7.8
silvesterde
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 9:00 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Dimensions again

Post by silvesterde »

Hi,

i built a wall with the shown values: 0,24 m wide, 2,63 m high. Controlling it: 24 m wide, 263 m high. Me too dumb for freecad?

frustrated
frank
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.4924 (Git)
Python version: 2.7.8
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DeepSOIC
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Re: Dimensions again

Post by DeepSOIC »

It looks like decimal point has gone wild. I am also having problems: when I edit a length in sketcher, I have to change the comma to a point to get it to update (but in other places, it just works with commas, even requires it).

I have comma set as a default decimal separator in windows settings, and a space as thousands separator (according to Russian conventions). You can try changing Windows settings to American-like style, if it is acceptable for you, and see if it helps.

PS. I merged two topics, because I think they are tightly related.
silvesterde
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 9:00 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Dimensions again

Post by silvesterde »

thank you for a work around, which - to be honest - is not acceptable, as i work with many different programs at a time.
If you read my prevoius posting with the attached jpg, you see that 2,4 mm in the standards will give a value of 240 mm in the measurement-window (which should be perfect), but the wall is 24 m wide. To get a width of 115 mm i should enter 0,115 mm in the standards, which is not possible.

This is more than a decimal point gone wild.

I am not a programmer, but i like to learn (began a beginners-course on C++ this week).
If this would be Allplan, you would see me very angry: "Thousands of Euros for crap, programmed by developers which a salary some times greater than my income!". But this is free, so i try to find the source for this problem.

cheers

EDIT:
Wow, thanks for merging my postings!
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.4924 (Git)
Python version: 2.7.8
ickby
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Re: Dimensions again

Post by ickby »

I did not test the behaviour, but currently this depends on the input fiels, AFAIK the unit aware input fields only accept the system seperator which depends on the locale, e.g. '.' for english and ',' for german. Don't know if the operating system setting is used. If the wrong seperator is used it is just ignored.

As not all inputs are yet converted to the unit system other input fields may have a different behaviour.
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DeepSOIC
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Re: Dimensions again

Post by DeepSOIC »

I vote for the following, if possible:
* display numbers with system decimal separator (comma or point)
* accept both comma and point as a decimal separator, regardless of system separator
* never ever use thousands separator (FreeCAD doesn't seem to ever display numbers above 9999, so the thousands separator doesn't help reading)
* don't use online filtering, let the user type what he wants. It frustrates me a lot when I have to erase some zeros to put some non-zeros instead, because of length limit.
Opinions?

-----
blue = edits
ickby
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Re: Dimensions again

Post by ickby »

There wa sa lengthy discussion somewhere why not both seperators are possible, but cant find it anymore. Maybe werner can shed some light on this
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DeepSOIC
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Re: Dimensions again

Post by DeepSOIC »

Found one such topic, with symptoms very similar to this one.
viewtopic.php?t=6910
here's another one, about the use of numpad:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5631&start=20

It looks like my opinion is the same as jriegel's opinion.
silvesterde
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 9:00 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Dimensions again

Post by silvesterde »

For me it seems not to be about the type of separator.
If 2,4 mm in the "Standards" translates to 0,24 m as default when drawing, which results in 24 m when controlled by ruler, then some logic needs to be applied...

WAIT, I just took a closer look.

Standard-Values:
Width: 0,24 mm
Height: 2,63 mm (i would like to enter a third digit for 2,635 m, which is useless for this field "mm", but...)

Default when select menu "wall":
Width: 24 mm
Height: 0,263 m (263 mm)

Start drawing (clicking in drawing-field), the values change:
Width: 2,4 m (2400 mm)
Height: 26,3 m (26.300 mm)

Which is correct (measured with ruler)!
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.4924 (Git)
Python version: 2.7.8
silvesterde
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue May 05, 2015 9:00 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Dimensions again

Post by silvesterde »

entered new standard-values when changed to system (mm, kg, s) instead of MKS (m, kg, s).
width: 0,02 mm, height: 0,26 mm. (Changed decimals from "2" to "4". No effect.)
result:
width: 2.000 m (in python-script: 2000000.0)
height: 26 km (in python-script: 26000000.0)
any suggestions?
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.16.4924 (Git)
Python version: 2.7.8
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