Re: scales and standards - DON'T DO IT that way!

Gavin Bell (gavin@krypton.engr.sgi.com)
Fri, 16 Sep 1994 18:07:30 -0700


Inventor has a Units node that allows units to be specified by
name.

>From my proposal (http://www.wired.com/vrml/oi/VRMLDesign.html):

I don't like Units because strange things happen when you
nest them; for example:

Separator {
Units { units FEET }
DEF FootCube Cube { }
Separator {
Units { units METERS }
DEF MeterCube Cube { }
}
}

Applications that try to be smart about rearranging the object
hierarchy will have trouble figuring out exactly what effect
the second Units node will have, since its effect will change if
it is moved out from under the first Units node. The rules are
much simpler if a simple Scale node is used instead.