Change internal scale

[Giacomo Ciani]

This is a feature request/suggestion for improvement.

I understand that Inkscape uses a fixed internal scale of 90 dpi when converting any physical unit to "SVG pixels". I don't know the reason for this, but for people that want/need to work in different units this can quite annoying. One example is the "arrow keys move steps". If I want to have steps of 1 mm, I need to set it to 1 mm, I have to set to 3.5433 pixels, that is not a very friendly number to remember of modify (what if I want 3 mm? Or 7?).

I would suggest one of the following strategies:
- allow to change the internal scale in the Inkscape (or document) preferences
- allow to specify option values (like the one for the arrow movements) in units different from "SVG pixels", and let Inkscape do the conversion behind the scenes.

Giacomo

[su_v (suv-lp)]

On 2014-08-04 05:35 , Giacomo Ciani wrote:
> - allow to specify option values (like the one for the arrow
> movements) in units different from "SVG pixels", and let Inkscape do
> the conversion behind the scenes.

Already tracked (and implemented for upcoming major new release 0.91) in
- Bug #170293 (sf976167) “Selectable units for steps”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170293>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

On 2014-08-04 05:35 , Giacomo Ciani wrote:
> I would suggest one of the following strategies:
> - allow to change the internal scale in the Inkscape (or document) preferences

Units handling has undergone some major rewrite in current trunk (based on a GSoC project last year), with much improved support for the viewBox attribute which now is added and updated when the user changes the default units, or the units for the size of the document page. It also does allow to change the internal resolution via a config file, but there is no additional GUI for that [1]; and a lot of details need yet to be decided on, see e.g. this discussion to get an idea about what a configurable 'drawing scale' might have to take into consideration (e.g. display vs document vs default export scale ratios):
<http://inkscape.13.x6.nabble.com/Units-Comments-tc4968148.html>

Additionally, there are ongoing efforts to migrate Inkscape to 96 dpi for the internal resolution (as defined in the current CSS2 spec) (see e.g. bug #510433).

Some of the many related earlier reports based on a quick search:
- Bug #223002 “Drawing to scale (for home use)”
- Bug #171976 “Store and change scale (e.g. 1:250) for technical drawings”
- Bug #170871 “Document measurement scaling”

--
[1] <http://www.mpetroff.net/archives/2013/09/20/finishing-google-summer-of-code/>

[Qantas94Heavy (qantas94heavy)]

Things like 'arrow keys move steps' now have unit selection as of Inkscape 0.92, so I guess this is fixed.