John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> Probably the biggest issue is that while many people around here use 1
> unit = 1 meter, others (such as I) use 1 unit = 1 cm for most scenes.
>
> This is probably best addressed with a simple line at the start of the
> macro or scene file:
>
> // -- uses centimeter scaling

John, this is a good point.  However, in a rendered scene, all real-world
metrics are virtual and exist only in the mind of the author of the scene
or that of the viewer.

The only immutable metric in a rendered scene is the pixel.  For purely
technical purposes, what if the objects in publicly shared include files
are initially intended to be viewable in a scene with an 'orthographic
camera' with 'up' and 'right' vectors which correspond to a standardized
render window - say < 0, 480, 0> and < 640, 0, 0 > respectively?

That way, when the end user makes use of one of these objects, s/he can
calculate centimeter/pixel, meter/pixel, inch/pixel, etc. at some distance
from the camera they're using and scale the objects accordingly.  Of
course, if rendering an image with dimensions other than 640 x 480 ( my
usual preference ), then scaling would also have to reflect this as well.

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