MKS units

A forum dedicated to the Draft, Arch and BIM workbenches development.
Forum rules
Be nice to others! Respect the FreeCAD code of conduct!
Post Reply
User avatar
Fernando
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 4:41 am
Location: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

MKS units

Post by Fernando »

Hi,

I'm trying to build the 3d model of a 2 stores house project I'm working. I import the autocad plans and set the units to mks. I noticed that most of the units are still displayed as mm, Including the default settings in the arch preferences, the measurement objects, etc. The behavior of the wall command is very strange, leading to 30 Km tall walls.

my question is: How do you use to set your units for architectural modeling (the way you think it works better)?
Renato Rebelo
Posts: 255
Joined: Mon May 19, 2014 1:14 pm
Location: Vouzela - Portugal

Re: MKS units

Post by Renato Rebelo »

Hello,
Welcome
I use the same settings that you, and I think this is the correct way, but they are known certain inconsistencies in different parts of the program on the subject
Renato Rebelo
my native language is not English, please excuse me any incorrectness, I apologize for any inconvenience caused, thank you
User avatar
bernd
Veteran
Posts: 12849
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 8:07 pm
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: MKS units

Post by bernd »

In the regard of a 30 km wide wall you could have a look at this post and the following post. Both solutions have been worked for me. viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13581&start=10#p117644

FYI: internally FreeCAD uses mm in any case (AFAIK). The unit system does make it possible to use other units to put in and get out of FreeCAD. They are converted by FreeCADs unit system which does not work in any case as espected. In german locale this is in most cases due to the comma we use as dezimal separator instead of a point.
User avatar
Fernando
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun May 15, 2016 4:41 am
Location: Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Re: MKS units

Post by Fernando »

Thanks a lot Renato and Brend, I could figure out how to work based on yours replies.

Dimensions are a tricky thing in a lot of cad systems. Especially in the AEC industries, where different professionals use different units. You can't convince an architect to work in millimeters, or a structural drafter to work in meters. And there are good reasons for that. I've worked in both positions along time and there were communication problems regarded to file dimensions and Autocad xrefs here and there.

In my opinion there should be a way for all the professional to choose the most coherent unit of work without any inconvenient behavior regarding the units used by the other members of the team. But I assume there are already a lot of discussion and ideas on the topic.
User avatar
yorik
Founder
Posts: 13640
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:16 pm
Location: Brussels
Contact:

Re: MKS units

Post by yorik »

I recently added a new units scheme that displays all measurements in centimeters, no matter the size. The current MKS system switches from one unit to another depending on the size. Maybe we need one more that forces everything in meters.

About the comma/period problem, another thing I noticed is that the displayed distance is constructed using the Qt default thousands and decimal separators. We could test a unit system that doesn't use that (for ex. always uses a period). If it works, then it would actually be easy to abstract into a preference setting...
Post Reply