1:1 View Based on Actual Screen Size?

[Anonymous]

I work on a large curved monitor, and after working on a part for a while, I start to lose my sense of scale.

To try to see the actual size, I put a ruler up to the screen and change the zoom until a known edge on the screen is roughly equal to the real measurement. 

I would find it really useful if there was a button somewhere in the view panel that took your actual screen size from your Windows computer info, and back-calculated to show the real-life 1:1 scale.

Would you guys also find this useful?

[Phil.E]

Thanks for posting. You're not alone, others have requested this. I think there may be some hurdles to producing this view, such as being able to determine your windows monitor settings or scaling. 

Once, someone suggested a banana primitive shape so you could make a banana to compare sizes in your model. On a serious note, have you tried using the grid or "props" to compare with your models? When I was a designer I had a 12oz soda pop can model that I would insert into my designs to give them scale.

Have you tried anything like that?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply! Finding a banana or standard model prop is on my to-do list for today 🙂

What if instead of finding the monitor make/details inside of Windows settings, just for the meantime we enter the width/height/resolution of the monitor manually? This would mean changing screens on a dual-monitor setup would make the scaling wrong on the other screen, what if there was a dropdown for screen scaling presets? "1:1 Left Monitor", "1:1 Right Monitor", etc

[Phil.E · Accepted solution]

While that is certainly possible, it is not something we are currently working on. 

Thanks,

[Mattersinmotion]

I really wish AD would include this feature in F360.  It would be very helpful to those who work on small parts.  This doesn't address this specific issue but here is a fantastic tool you can use to scale your display and print a 1:1 image even for larger sketches, etc.   https://woodgears.ca/bigprint

Use this tool to make life size paper templates of sketches/bodies then glue to stock and cut.  Very useful and very inexpensive.  Matthias Wandel has an excellent YouTube channel with many other tools and techniques.

Hope this helps some people...

- Robert

[NVNDO]

Hey there... I'm in the same position.

Measuring my designs with a ruler to the screen to get accurate measurements.

Instead of implementing a feature that suites all screens and situations,

how about adding a button with which one can save a given zoom?

That way one could measure the real size once with the help of a ruler and push that button to memorize the exact zoom set at that moment.

That feature should be very easy to implement.

Your opinion would be very much appreciated 🙂

With best regards

N

[TheCADWhisperer · Accepted solution]

@NVNDO 

@Anonymous 

This button already exists in Fusion.

Adhere a piece of tape of known length to bottom (or top or side) of your monitor just off the raster area.

Zoom the screen relative to the tape (you might mark with gradients).

Right click on the View Cube and select Set as Home Position.

Now at any time you need to get back to 1:1 simply click on the Home glyph upper right corner of screen. 
👨‍🎓

[NVNDO]

Noooooo way...!

You're a genius! It works..! Can't believe it XD

Awesome!

Thank you SOOO much!!

Best regards

N

[TheCADWhisperer]

@NVNDO 

Another idea:

Find a clear image of a scale on the internet.

Place the image in a Canvas and scale.

Now set your Home Position. 
This would give you a scale within your file. 

Or model a external scale an place (like the banana idea presented earlier).

[NVNDO]

The first solution does the job perfectly 🙂

[Semirage]

While this works.. I honestly consider this a work around and not a solution.

For designs > 200mm its usually not a problem. But when working on really fine details, after a few hours of staring at the screen, it really does mess up your perception. Zoomed in is amazing to work with, but when you finally send the component to be created, and it comes back a 10th of the size you expected in your head is just a bit of a mind ****. Even if it expected.

Also, I use fusion 360 on 3 different computers/monitors, and while its convenient to stick a piece of tape/ruler on my main monitor, and then have to zoom, check.. save the "home" for every project.. it fails when I change monitors, laptops, or load a design from another team member who has a different home setup.

It really shouldn't be that difficult to have an option to configure fusion for X number of monitors, where you do the calibration (zoom ratio : tape/ruler), and then have a button that says: "show view port: to scale for monitor/calibration X".

It might even be possible to automate it more based on the current screen resolution, but at least having the ability to "calibrate" it would mean AD can just tell us users: click on preferences.. do this.. save.., click or use hotkey XYZ when ever you need to change the view to show desired perspective. Could be 1:1, 1:50, X:your moms underwear, etc)

[NVNDO]

I totally agree! 

[Clemens_SteffinQEUW9]

Is it still working for you? I can only set the current view as Home with "fixed distance", which keeps the distance I have when pressing home, or as "fit to view", where it zooms to fit the whole model in my view. But not the so much desired 1:1 view... 😞

[CGBenner]

@Clemens_SteffinQEUW9 

Welcome to the forum.  I am moving this thread to the Fusion Design forum for further discussion.

Have you followed all of the steps suggested by @TheCADWhisperer and it is still not working for you?

[Phil.E]

Thanks for letting us know. The view cube needs some attention, I don't think Fixed Distance works currently as it should. 

Edit: I started to log a bug report for this because I could reproduce the issue. Home view with Fixed Distance was behaving strangely. But after starting up another Fusion build to check on it, the problem is gone. When I then returned to the same Fusion build and model where I saw the issues it remains un-reproducible. Please try restarting Fusion.

Also: Have you tried turning on the grid and using a fixed value? Like this:

[Clemens_SteffinQEUW9]

Hi, thanks for your fast answers, you guys are awesome! I tried restart, I tried new design nothing seems to help. The tip with the grid is good to not loose sense of scale, but still not optimal. ATM my workaround is a sketch with a rectangel that is the exact size of my screen, that I can zoom onto. Works, but still an uncomfortable workaround 🙂

Anyways, thanks for the help!!!

[Phil.E · Accepted solution]

Here is more detail about that Canvas workflow.

Find an image of a ruler, insert it as a Canvas

Find it in the browser and right click on it, pick calibrate:

Pick two points on the image (zoom in close)

I usually do this a couple times to be sure, and it helps to have a high def image.

Save this file by itself so you can insert it. Here it is, inserted as a component (so you can move it). The bolt is 4mm diameter.

[Phil.E]

Thinking about it some more, you could also get or make a model of a ruler/scale to insert into your designs just as easily as an image.  (grabcad)

[Semirage]

For me attaching a ruler doesn't seem to really fix the issue of being able to have something show 1:1 on your screen , and for really small components when you are working in 0.1 mm it means having to have multiple rulers.

For really large designs, I understand this wouldn't be useful, but since most people using CAD have large/ultrawide monitors, when you are working with anything that is at least 400mm x 400mm x 400mm, it should fit 1:1 on our screens, just just to get a feel for the scale of the model (which is kinda important with the massive amount of 3d printing advances) 

Right now @Clemens_SteffinQEUW9 solution of drawing a box the size of the screen and filling the view with that object, seems about the only solution.

[Phil.E]

Am I reading your comment correctly, you plan on modeling at 1:1 in the 0.1mm size range?