Export to MeshMixer question

[ken.casser]

I am designing using Inches.  I then export to MeshMixer and select "Inches" for the conversion to an .stl file.  When I subsequently Open the file in either MeshMixer or MeshLab and take a measurement, "millimeters" are displayed, not inches.  What up?  I never measured in MM or ML before but my associate is telling me that he always opened my files in ML and they came up in Inches...until yesterday.  Very strange...

[innovatenate]

Thanks for posting to the forum and welcome to the community!

Fusion 360 works in CM behind the scenes, even if you have inches selected as the unit of measure. Conversions are done for the display, cosmetically. STL is a unitless file format. There is no indication of inch, cm, etc.. in the STL file itself.

What methods are you using to create the STL file? Are you using the Save Copy As command, exporting from file menu or exporting from the A360 Dashboard? Does it make a difference if you use a different method to generate the STL file.

After importing into Meshmixer, is should be pretty straight forward to scale according to the right conversion factor (e.g. 1/2.54, 2.54, 1/25.4, 25.4). I hope that helps.

Thanks,

[ken.casser]

Hi Nate,

Thank you for your response.  I can convert to inches in the MeshMixer program and it doesn't look like I have to scale the model to make the conversion.  I just didn't understand why I needed to do that.  Isn't there a 'preference' selection where I could set 'inches' as a standard parameter?  To create the stl file I clicked on "Make" from the top bar, and then "3D Print".  I also tried "save as stl" by right clicking on the body in the browser but got the same result.  It just seems strange, but maybe my associate's recollection was incorrect.

[MattPerez314]

While stl "units" are arbitrary some programs assume they are something. I can't remember off hand what meshlab assumes but I thought it was mm.