View Full Version : Exact Measurements
g4jedi
10-24-2006, 03:28 PM
I am either stupid or I am missing something....
How do I make a cube (or any shape for that matter) at a specified measurement? For example, making a cube 2.25" wide, by .5" tall and 1" deep. It seems like this should be easy. I can create a rectangle, but the scale says "1" for X, Y and Z. HELP!
oldhippie_tom
10-24-2006, 04:26 PM
If you select the box next to CREATE POLYGON CUBE you will get this. Is it what you want?
g4jedi
10-24-2006, 04:33 PM
Yes... I eventually figured it out... and I also had to turn OFF the "interactive creation". I do not like that feature! Thanks!
g4jedi
10-26-2006, 03:16 PM
Ok... I have another problem... When I set the units of measurement in Maya preferences to say, "inches" does that only apply to the grid in the work area? The problem I am having is, I created a model of a product that I had an SLA made from. It was 9.7 inches wide. I'm creating a new design based upon that original model. Now when I add a cube that is supposed to be 3 inches wide, it is WIDER than the 9.7 inch model!!! What is going on here???
laxman
10-26-2006, 11:19 PM
Maya is not like CAD software in terms of its units. I just spent the last few days trying to export a maya model to a .stl for 3D printing. Basically, as far as I know, the units simply do not work. I was importing the .stl into Pro Engineer, but no matter what I did to the units, proE just kept interpreting the units randomly. So when you make a model that has exact dimentions, forget about the units. Just make the relative scale correct. So leave maya to its default settings and if you want cm, just say to yourself that one grid space is 1 cm. Then you are going to have to import the model into CAD software for exact units.
As far as your specific problem goes, when you changed units, I don't think it scalled your model to follow them. So the grid just got bigger. So the 9.7 inches that you have is actually 9.7 cm, but when you creat a new object it makes the actual size 3 in.
g4jedi
10-27-2006, 01:29 AM
Yeah, I sorta figured that out too. Also, Sub-D isn't the same size as Polygons at all! Using Maya for industrial design is a bad idea I'm learning!