Are These Features in Development?

Hi All,

I’d like to find out if these features are in development:

  • display units in inches only (instead of inches and feet),
  • in the Exit Blender dialog: a button for “Save & Exit,”
  • numeric input for multiple objects (select multiple objects, type a number in one of the Location, Rotation or Scale fields, all objects get that x, y or z location or scale, or that number of degrees rotation).

If they aren’t, where can I make the suggestion to developers? blenderstorm.org looks like it hasn’t been used since version 2.57.

I’m not aware of any of these being under development currently… however:

  • Shouldn’t be too difficult to do… though it might be better to extend that to an actual feature whereby you define a “base unit”
  • This would be a very simple Python add-on
  • Although there’s not a numeric entry field for multiple objects, you can do this by changing the Pivot Point to Individual Centers and then using numeric entry while in the midst of whichever transform operator you’re using (e.g. R > X > X > 63 would rotate all selected objects about their individual centers’ x-axes by 63 degrees

Hi Fweeb,

Thanks for the reply.

Are you talking about adding another button to Scene > Units? You know, like the options would then be: None, Metric, Imperial and Inches, that kind of thing?

Any way it’s done would be helpful. I’m currently working from plans drawn up in 1976 and all measurements are in inches. Even with “Separate Units” checked, I still have to do a lot of translating from feet-and-inches to pure inches.

Cool. My Python skills are pretty dismal, but I have written a couple of small things. Finding where to hook into the dialog might be a challenge.

Also, I did a search in C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation as well as C:\Users<me>\AppData\Blender Foundation and couldn’t find a Python file with the exit dialog. Any idea where it is?

Cool. Thanks! That seems to work for location and scale as well. That’ll speed things up a lot.

Use Units: None

Thanks for the suggestion, JuhaW, but it has to be accurate in inches.

With decimals like 2.05 inch ? If thats the case then Units: none. If only integers then no clue.

Yeah… A dropdown perhaps. So if you choose Imperial, you can set the base unit (or maximum unit might be a better term) to yards, feet, inches, etc. If you choose metric, you could choose the maximum unit to be microns, millimeters, centimeters, meters, and so on.

Actually, I just realized that you’re referring to the actual exit dialog and not a Save and Exit option in the File menu. Sorry about that. The latter can be done in Python. The former would probably need to be in C… and it would vary depending on the operating system you’re using.

Great idea. I’ll be looking forward to it. :slight_smile:

Maybe I misunderstood your first reply.

When you say “Use Units: None,” my understanding is that that’s setting it to Blender units (the default). Since Blender units aren’t equal to anything in the Imperial system, I don’t understand how that helps.

I use units set to none and just remember that the unitless measurements are actually inches.

I ran into some difficulties with the fps walkthrough mode because of this though. Thankfully, I submitted a bug report and the devs made the gravity configurable to work with inches per second squared. works like a charm!

Thanks again, devs!

I just realized that we misunderstood each other on this point.

What I was originally thinking (and then lost track of) is being able to select multiple objects and give them all the same (for instance) x location value.

For instance, three cubes, located at (cube 1) x = 3.2 units, (cube 2) x = 4, and (cube 3) x = 5. What would be nice is to be able to give all of them a new x location of (for instance) 9. Not moving them each by 9 units, but they all end up at x = 9.

That’s what I was trying to explain in my original post.

in blender 2.49 it was possible to copy location from active to selected by ctrl+c now “copy attributes menu” addon has to be enabled http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Copy_Attributes_Menu then right click on object properties - transform - copy to selected.

I use 1 BU = 1 mm for 3D printing and did not fail to me for now when exporting to .Stl and printing it on!

Sure it helps:
1)you can type all values in inches, no feets, yards etc.
2) you can see all values without any “ft” or “yd” marks, just pure values which are inches.

I think those are exactly what you are looking for.

Well, that’s close, but not quite what I’m looking for. Copy Attributes copies all location data whereas I’d like to copy just the x, y, or z data by itself.

Here’s an illustration of what I’m talking about. The arrow points at a cube with an x location of 0 which, in the ‘after’ image, is copied to all other cubes:


Yup, you’re right, I could do that. But it would make me itch! :slight_smile:

I agree. This does sound like a good way to go.

You didn’t have to translate to another measuring system before printing? I’m not following how this would work.

OH, okay. I see what you’re saying now.

If I’d realized this a month ago when I started this project, I would have done things this way. I suppose I could have scaled it afterwards if that became an issue.

Unfortunately, at this point, I’d have to go back and rebuild dozens of objects in this scale. :frowning:

Thanks for all the input, guys. This is really helpful.

you can use object - transform -align objects.