This is just a report of an observation of a very minor "problem."

Created a simple 49 inch square in MoI, (to be used as vector for surfacing CNC).
Save to PDF with MoI, still in inches.
From MoI, re-open PDF. This works fine, units stay in Inches.

Second method, from Windows Explored, right click on PDF file, choose "Open With MoI 3D Cad Application."
The PDF opens in MoI, but the units have been switched in MoI to cm (centimeters).-----(The Problem)

(Using the second method, right click on PDF file, choose "Open With Aspire," and the vectors open in Inches.)

- Brian

ps I did, once only, get an Aspire warning message:

Config File
No UNITS = directive found in file
On line 1 of file

Hi Brian, the issue is that PDF files do not really have anything in them to have different types of units, they actually use a typographical "point" unit for all their internal coordinates (1 "point" = 1/72 of an inch).

So because PDF files do not contain any kind of concept of the coordinates being in any different unit system other than "points", MoI will not try to change the current unit system in MoI when you open a PDF file.


> Second method, from Windows Explored, right click on PDF file, choose "Open With MoI 3D Cad Application."
> The PDF opens in MoI, but the units have been switched in MoI to cm (centimeters).-----(The Problem)

This probably means you've got centimeters as your default startup units (check under Options > General > "Unit options" button > Default unit system.

When you open from Windows Explorer, MoI starts up and initializes with that default unit system, and then when opening a PDF file there isn't any change to the current unit system setting...

Aspire I suppose decides to use Inches as the unit system whenever you open a PDF file, which I guess is ok but I'm not entirely sure that's exactly "better" than what MoI is currently doing.

PDF files are really primarily meant to be just sent to a printer, there isn't a whole lot of stuff in them that is meant to tell CAD programs what kind of runtime settings to use for stuff.

I guess I could make some kind of setting in MoI for what unit system to use when opening a PDF file, between either mm, cm, or inches... Would that help any?

- Michael

Hi Brian, I'm going to shorten the title for this thread if you don't mind, previous title was:
Problem with PDF file created in MoI in Inches, being re-opened in MoI with Windows7 right click, "open with" "MoI 3D Cad Application", Units change to cm

It's just so long it takes up a lot of lines in the topics list.

- Michael

ahoy brian!

did you set your default unit system to inches?



i'm on win 7 64 and it's working.

Thank you Michael and Marco.
False problem Solved.
Even though Units were set to Inches, My Default unit setting was in cm. :-)
Learned something new.

- Brian