Why do some Components not scale?
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I have a chair model that when I scale the model to 1/2 size, all the components and groups scale expect the cushion. Does anyone know the difference in that one component?
To clarify, the technique I am using to scale is to draw a line of some length, "Tape" it, then enter the new length I want - scaling the entire model.
I know I can always select everything and use the Scale Tool, but then I loose the ability to enter exact lengths.
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Hi Jim,
With the tape measure tool, external (imported) components do not scale. Try to explode that cushion and "implode" it again into a new component - now it should scale.
Here is the Tape measure section of the (old) SU Guide. Read the bottom line note of the "Scaling an Entire Model" part:
@unknownuser said:
Note- Only components that are created within the current model (not dragged from the Component Browser and loaded from an external component file) can be resized. -
Ok, thanks. It makes sense because that was an imported component - but I can't think of a good reason why it would work that way.
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I can also only guess - maybe they think that most of the components one imports are scaled properly and sometimes people may only realise that they are out of scale with their models when they start populating it with imported stuff.
Now you can safely scale your own model while keeping the otherwise correctly scaled components at their original scale.
This would make somesense...
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Really? THat is odd and I had never noticed that before. And like Jim, I can think of no reason it would need to work that way, or that it should work that way. Very odd.
Chris
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@gaieus said:
I can also only guess - maybe they think that most of the components one imports are scaled properly
...not if you import Google Warehouse models.... All too many models there are out of scale. And it would be very practical if the tape scaling for for them - to for instance scale that 20000meter car into the correct scale.
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I never noticed that either !
You can scale the contents of an imported component by editing its definition and using the tapemeasure tool [tm] with two picked points and typing in a new size.
If you group several things and then edit that group and then scale by tm, any external components instances don't get scaled BUT other geometry etc does !
BUT if you had grouped that group and you do the scale by tm whilst editing the outermost enclosing group then everything will scale by tm as desired ???
Grouping groups and scaling by tm does do it, but then remember to explode them afterwards...
I really can't see why you can't scale by tm for instances of imported components - especially when you can scale by tm on it's contents and a 'reload' of it will completely mess you up then !!!
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@thomthom said:
@gaieus said:
I can also only guess - maybe they think that most of the components one imports are scaled properly
...not if you import Google Warehouse models.... All too many models there are out of scale. And it would be very practical if the tape scaling for for them - to for instance scale that 20000meter car into the correct scale.
Thom - the key words were "they think".
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Thinking, ey...
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I never noticed that behavior either. I wonder if you make the component unique if it will scale. they you could right click on it "save as" to over write the original defenition.
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If it is the only Component in the model, it is already unique, so Make Unique is not enabled in the menu.
Clearly when you import a Component it is a copy of the one one disk, and I still can't think of a reason for not scaling it. The extra work of exploding and re-creating the Component is a bit annoying.
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There is this same difference with expandable and non-expandable nested components. I think it was Chris who brought it up on that other forum why we cannot have collapsed components in the browser when the child components only exist nested in parents? It would be logical and very comfortable as tiny bits would not pollute your valuable work space.
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@gaieus said:
There is this same difference with expandable and non-expandable nested components. I think it was Chris who brought it up on that other forum why we cannot have collapsed components in the browser when the child components only exist nested in parents? It would be logical and very comfortable as tiny bits would not pollute your valuable work space.
Yes - I'd really like to see the user (and developers via the API) to be able to control which components are expanded (internal) or not. Would make organizing a model so much easier.
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