Units in OBJ and STL files

[RSK]

Hi,

I draw a model in Metric meters. When I Export it to a STL or OBJ file the unit conversion doesn't work properly. It seems like it's exported in feet, which gives some problems when importing in i.e. Flow Design or Rhino.

Best regards,

Rolf

[Anonymous]

 Hi Rolf - thanks for filing this bug with us! I'll see how soon we can get it resolved for you. We want FormIt to be a very friendly 'middle man' whenever you want to go out to another file type.

I wanted to confirm with you on the nature of the problem: The units conversion is causing some odd 'rounding errors'? Or your model is off by a factor of 12?

Thanks,

Tobias

[RSK]

I found that the model is exported in feet, even though I have modelled it in meters in FormIt. I then have to rescale it by 304.8 to get it back to metric units. /Rolf

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the follow up Rolf, that helps us narrow down the problem. We'll try to address this bug in an upcoming release!

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

Just to bring up an old subject, I get the same issue, but with FBX. Is there a known bug with a Metric FormIt project, and exporting to FBX makes the units in Feet?

[josh.goldstein]

Hi Tomislav,

This is still an issue, and I apologize. We need to get this fixed.

In the meantime, there is a workaround you can try:

- Put everything you're working on inside a single container Group at the Main Sketch level (not inside another Group).

- Copy the Group and Paste-in-Place (Ctrl + Shift + V) to create an exact duplicate in the same position in space.

- Create a new Layer and name it something clearly indicating it's the scaled version. When you Paste-in-Place, the copied Group will be selected automatically, so you can easily put that selection on the new Layer.

- Scale the new Group 328.08% to account for the scale factor of feet-to-meters.

- You can temporarily turn off the new Layer that contains the scaled Group, and continue modifying geometry in the original Group, and every change you make there will propagate to the scaled Group.

- When you're ready to export, you can turn on the "scaled" Layer, select that Group, and File > Export Selected, to your desired file format. This should result in geometry that's the correct scale. Then you can simply turn off that scaled Layer and continue working.

This isn't ideal, but might work in a pinch until we release FormIt with the ability to specify the export scale. After the first-time setup, this should require minimal work for a file that you repeatedly export to another format - just toggle the appropriate Layer when Exporting Selected, then turn it off, and continue working as you normally would in the non-scaled Group.