Tips on Scaling Objects and How to Convert MM to Inches
In this quick tip, we learn some tips and techniques for scaling objects and we also look at how to convert a design from metric to inches. This works in Vectric Aspire, VCarve, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this quick tip, we're going to look at how to scale projects from millimeters to inches. And we're also going to look at different scaling techniques you coulduse on different projects. So for this example, a lot of times when you purchase a file online, it may be in millimeters, like this project is here.
And you may want to be using inches instead. So as you can see this project that I just imported came in very large. If I select one of these shapes at the bottom where our measurements are, you could see it's 440 inches tall. So that is way bigger than I'd want to cut this. And you can see down here is the job size that I want it to fit in.
And this is 22 inches tall. So an easy way to scale this down. Would be to select all the objects, just draw a selection box around them all, or click control A on your keyboard to select all the objects. And then we're going to go to our scale tool and you could see currently we are 1700 inches wide by 463 inches tall.
So if you knew the exact measurements that you wanted, you could type that in here, but an easier way to scale this down since we know this is in millimeters. We can convert this two inches. So first you have to make sure that we are scaling the entire selection up at the top. And then you can select an anchor position.
In this case, I'm going to go to the lower left corner because I want that to stay where it's at. And then we want to make sure the X and Y is linked together. That's going to scale both the width and the height proportionally. So as you can see our job is in inches. And right now, this measurement here would be the metric number.
So we want to convert this number to inches. So to do that, you just go to the end of the measurement, just click inside this box. And then you want to type in the multiplication symbol, which is the asterisk symbol and then type the letter I, I for Imperial or inches. And then type the equal sign and you'll see that we'll convert that measurement from millimeters to inches.
Now it is 18 inches tall, and that will automatically convert the width measurement as well because we linked the X and Y together. So now when you click apply, you could see the entire job scaled down to inches, and now our project would be in inches. So when you select the shape that we looked at before, It is now 17 inches by 14 inches, and now that's much more reasonable to cut and it fits within our job size.
Okay so now another technique we're going to look at is let's say we had all these cutouts here and we wanted that to fit our material. Now the width of the slot, we should not change because that's going to fit the seat right here, that width there. So we want to keep the width the same. But we may want to adjust the thickness depending on what kind of material we are using.
So let's select this here, we'll see where we're at now, you could see this one has just over three quarters of an inch 0.7568. Let's say that we wanted to use half inch material instead. So what you can do is select that shape and scale it down by typing the half inch value here. But if you had multiple cutouts in your project, you can scale them all at the same time.
If you're using Version 11 or above. So let's hold our shift key, we'll select these other shapes here. And I'm only going to select these horizontal ones because they are the same size. These vertical ones are a little bit different size in the length. So I'll do those separately. Okay so with these horizontal one selected and we want to make sure they're all the same size.
We are going to select the option at the top, where it says scale items individually, that will now scale each item by itself, rather than scaling them all together. So now we need to select a anchor position. In this case, I'm going to go to the center that way, it does not move from the center location, depending on your project.
You may want it to anchor from the top or bottom. That's going to be up to you. Like I mentioned before, we're not going to adjust the width. So we want to un-link the X and Y. So now we can come down here to the height and we can set this to 0.5 inches, which would be one half of an inch. So now we can click apply and you could see those slots all scaled at the same time.
And they're all now a half inch in the height and then the same measurement in the width. Okay so now these rectangles that are at these angles, we can select those holding our shift key. And these ones are going to be a little bit different and I actually redrew these rectangles and then rotated them that way Vectric knows the rotation.
If you just try to use the import Vectric won't know the rotation of these rectangles. So it's better if you redraw the rectangle in the vertical position and then rotate it to the same angle, that way you can use what's called the rotated bounds within Vectric. So you can see right now it's registering as 1.6 inches.
And that's because it's measuring from the left most point to the right most point. And in between those two is 1.6 inches. But if you switch it to the rotated bounds, Now it's measuring from the left line to the right line and it's going perpendicular across there. So now it's measuring the correct measurement, which actually it's the height in this case, which is the little over three quarters of an inch, just like the other ones were.
So now it's measuring both of these shapes correctly, with the rotated bounds and we're scaling items individually. So now we're going to anchor off the center again. We're going to keep the X and Y un-linked and we'll switch this measurement to 0.5 and click apply, and you can see those were adjusted just like we wanted them to.
So that's how you could adjust different slots inside of your project. Now let's look at one more project. And this one here is a rocking horse, and I actually had someone send this into me, asking how he could scale this entire horse with all of these shapes disconnected from the horse. So since he has this shape all together, down here, we could select just the horse would just draw a selection box around the horse, then go back to our scaling tool.
And this time we want to make sure we are scaling the selection and the anchor position, we can keep it centered. And then we want to make sure the X and Y is linked together. Now we just need to know either the width or the height measurement that we want this horse to be. And in this case he wants it 36 inches in the width.
So that means from the left most point to the right, most point of this horse would be 36 inches. So if we go into the width measurement and type in 36, and at this point, you do not want to click anything. You just want to type in the value that you want. And what we're after here is the percentage number underneath. Now in older versions of Vectric 10.5 and below, this was a little bit easier because you can actually select that percentage and right click and copy that value.
But in Version 11 and above, unfortunately you can not select that number anymore. So the way I found around that is if you open up your calculator or any kind of notepad, On your computer, or you can even write down the number. Uh, I just like to type it here that way I can copy it.
So I'm going to look at this number that is the percentage, and I'm going to do 91.542946. That is the number in this box. If you can't see the entire number on this one, just look at the height one as well. Both of those numbers are going to be the same as long as the X and Y is linked together. Okay so now this number is typed here.
We can right click, click, select all then right click and copy that number. Now we can minimize that. And now, instead of scaling just the shape, what we're going to do is de-select that, and right now we did not scale it at all. We just needed that for the measurement. So now we can select all of our shapes.
And then we're going to switch this from inches to percentage. And right now they are at a hundred percent the size they are right now and making sure X and Y is linked together. We are going to highlight the percentage, right click and click paste. And that will paste in that percentage that we just copied.
So now when we click apply, All of these shapes have now proportionally scaled down to the size that we want them. So now, if we select this horse again, you could see the width is now 36 inches. We could switch that to inches and you'll see the 36 there. And then all of the shapes, since we scaled them down, proportionally are all going to be the exact size they need to be, to match this horse.
And you could do the same thing, let's say you wanted one of these circles to be an exact size and you want everything proportionally scaled to that size. Let's say the circle we wanted at three quarters of an inch, so we can type in the value here 0.75 And then we just need our percentage number.
We'll go back to our calculator type that in 136.42286. Then we are going to copy that number. That's our percentage that we want to scale everything up. And then instead of scaling just that shape, we're going to select all of the shapes and then switch this to the percentage. And then paste that number in here.
And now it's going to scale everything up the 136 percentage, and then we click apply and now you could see everything was proportionally scaled. And if we go back to that circle, it's going to be exactly three quarters of an inch. So that's how you can scale entire projects to proportionally scale with one individual measurement.
So hopefully these tips helped you out. And if they did just let me know below in the comments.
And you may want to be using inches instead. So as you can see this project that I just imported came in very large. If I select one of these shapes at the bottom where our measurements are, you could see it's 440 inches tall. So that is way bigger than I'd want to cut this. And you can see down here is the job size that I want it to fit in.
And this is 22 inches tall. So an easy way to scale this down. Would be to select all the objects, just draw a selection box around them all, or click control A on your keyboard to select all the objects. And then we're going to go to our scale tool and you could see currently we are 1700 inches wide by 463 inches tall.
So if you knew the exact measurements that you wanted, you could type that in here, but an easier way to scale this down since we know this is in millimeters. We can convert this two inches. So first you have to make sure that we are scaling the entire selection up at the top. And then you can select an anchor position.
In this case, I'm going to go to the lower left corner because I want that to stay where it's at. And then we want to make sure the X and Y is linked together. That's going to scale both the width and the height proportionally. So as you can see our job is in inches. And right now, this measurement here would be the metric number.
So we want to convert this number to inches. So to do that, you just go to the end of the measurement, just click inside this box. And then you want to type in the multiplication symbol, which is the asterisk symbol and then type the letter I, I for Imperial or inches. And then type the equal sign and you'll see that we'll convert that measurement from millimeters to inches.
Now it is 18 inches tall, and that will automatically convert the width measurement as well because we linked the X and Y together. So now when you click apply, you could see the entire job scaled down to inches, and now our project would be in inches. So when you select the shape that we looked at before, It is now 17 inches by 14 inches, and now that's much more reasonable to cut and it fits within our job size.
Okay so now another technique we're going to look at is let's say we had all these cutouts here and we wanted that to fit our material. Now the width of the slot, we should not change because that's going to fit the seat right here, that width there. So we want to keep the width the same. But we may want to adjust the thickness depending on what kind of material we are using.
So let's select this here, we'll see where we're at now, you could see this one has just over three quarters of an inch 0.7568. Let's say that we wanted to use half inch material instead. So what you can do is select that shape and scale it down by typing the half inch value here. But if you had multiple cutouts in your project, you can scale them all at the same time.
If you're using Version 11 or above. So let's hold our shift key, we'll select these other shapes here. And I'm only going to select these horizontal ones because they are the same size. These vertical ones are a little bit different size in the length. So I'll do those separately. Okay so with these horizontal one selected and we want to make sure they're all the same size.
We are going to select the option at the top, where it says scale items individually, that will now scale each item by itself, rather than scaling them all together. So now we need to select a anchor position. In this case, I'm going to go to the center that way, it does not move from the center location, depending on your project.
You may want it to anchor from the top or bottom. That's going to be up to you. Like I mentioned before, we're not going to adjust the width. So we want to un-link the X and Y. So now we can come down here to the height and we can set this to 0.5 inches, which would be one half of an inch. So now we can click apply and you could see those slots all scaled at the same time.
And they're all now a half inch in the height and then the same measurement in the width. Okay so now these rectangles that are at these angles, we can select those holding our shift key. And these ones are going to be a little bit different and I actually redrew these rectangles and then rotated them that way Vectric knows the rotation.
If you just try to use the import Vectric won't know the rotation of these rectangles. So it's better if you redraw the rectangle in the vertical position and then rotate it to the same angle, that way you can use what's called the rotated bounds within Vectric. So you can see right now it's registering as 1.6 inches.
And that's because it's measuring from the left most point to the right most point. And in between those two is 1.6 inches. But if you switch it to the rotated bounds, Now it's measuring from the left line to the right line and it's going perpendicular across there. So now it's measuring the correct measurement, which actually it's the height in this case, which is the little over three quarters of an inch, just like the other ones were.
So now it's measuring both of these shapes correctly, with the rotated bounds and we're scaling items individually. So now we're going to anchor off the center again. We're going to keep the X and Y un-linked and we'll switch this measurement to 0.5 and click apply, and you can see those were adjusted just like we wanted them to.
So that's how you could adjust different slots inside of your project. Now let's look at one more project. And this one here is a rocking horse, and I actually had someone send this into me, asking how he could scale this entire horse with all of these shapes disconnected from the horse. So since he has this shape all together, down here, we could select just the horse would just draw a selection box around the horse, then go back to our scaling tool.
And this time we want to make sure we are scaling the selection and the anchor position, we can keep it centered. And then we want to make sure the X and Y is linked together. Now we just need to know either the width or the height measurement that we want this horse to be. And in this case he wants it 36 inches in the width.
So that means from the left most point to the right, most point of this horse would be 36 inches. So if we go into the width measurement and type in 36, and at this point, you do not want to click anything. You just want to type in the value that you want. And what we're after here is the percentage number underneath. Now in older versions of Vectric 10.5 and below, this was a little bit easier because you can actually select that percentage and right click and copy that value.
But in Version 11 and above, unfortunately you can not select that number anymore. So the way I found around that is if you open up your calculator or any kind of notepad, On your computer, or you can even write down the number. Uh, I just like to type it here that way I can copy it.
So I'm going to look at this number that is the percentage, and I'm going to do 91.542946. That is the number in this box. If you can't see the entire number on this one, just look at the height one as well. Both of those numbers are going to be the same as long as the X and Y is linked together. Okay so now this number is typed here.
We can right click, click, select all then right click and copy that number. Now we can minimize that. And now, instead of scaling just the shape, what we're going to do is de-select that, and right now we did not scale it at all. We just needed that for the measurement. So now we can select all of our shapes.
And then we're going to switch this from inches to percentage. And right now they are at a hundred percent the size they are right now and making sure X and Y is linked together. We are going to highlight the percentage, right click and click paste. And that will paste in that percentage that we just copied.
So now when we click apply, All of these shapes have now proportionally scaled down to the size that we want them. So now, if we select this horse again, you could see the width is now 36 inches. We could switch that to inches and you'll see the 36 there. And then all of the shapes, since we scaled them down, proportionally are all going to be the exact size they need to be, to match this horse.
And you could do the same thing, let's say you wanted one of these circles to be an exact size and you want everything proportionally scaled to that size. Let's say the circle we wanted at three quarters of an inch, so we can type in the value here 0.75 And then we just need our percentage number.
We'll go back to our calculator type that in 136.42286. Then we are going to copy that number. That's our percentage that we want to scale everything up. And then instead of scaling just that shape, we're going to select all of the shapes and then switch this to the percentage. And then paste that number in here.
And now it's going to scale everything up the 136 percentage, and then we click apply and now you could see everything was proportionally scaled. And if we go back to that circle, it's going to be exactly three quarters of an inch. So that's how you can scale entire projects to proportionally scale with one individual measurement.
So hopefully these tips helped you out. And if they did just let me know below in the comments.
