3

To be specific, if I extrude by pressing E and I type 40 (for 40mm), where do I look up this value on Blender?

Same for when I scale; I'd press S and type 0.2 (for 20%).

In a situation where I would go back to see the size of a face, how do I know if it was scaled 25% or 20%, or how would I know if a face was extruded to 40(mm) and not 55(mm)?

I need to know because I want precision or accuracy for 3d Printing.

Mr Zak
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junerockwell
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    Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/19772/2843, http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/41648/2843 – Samoth Mar 25 '16 at 21:22
  • You don't compare length of extruded part with base of extrusion; you should measure all the parts and calculate what's the difference is between them. To learn whether the face was extruded by 40 mm or 55 measure the edge between extrusion and its base. Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/274/how-to-model-effectively-using-exact-measurements – Mr Zak Mar 25 '16 at 22:51
  • The transformations are done in the units you set as scale for the scene. E 40 will extrude 40 units. To extrude 40mm, The units for the scene have to be set to metric, and the scale to .001. Alternatively you can leave the scale at 1 and then type E .04 to extrude 0.04m –  Mar 26 '16 at 16:53

1 Answers1

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There isn't explicit construction history in Blender per se. If you ever want to know the dimensions of your object for 3d printing, you can always go to the display properties in the viewport, and scroll down until you see the Edge Info buttons under Mesh Display. Note that you must have fully applied the extrusion operator to see these dimensions.

  1. Move your cursor into the 3d viewport
  2. Press "N" to bring up the Display Properties.
  3. Scroll down the Display Properties until you see Mesh Display
  4. Check off whichever buttons (Edge length, angle, or Face area) applies to what you're interested in.
  5. Select the face/edges that you want to know the dimensions of. Accessing Face/Edge properties
Mike Belanger
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    To have accurate mesurements this way you need to make sure that all transfrormations made in Edit mode have been applied (Ctrl+A) see: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47318/why-do-the-measurements-of-this-object-seem-erroneous/47320#47320 and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7298/why-is-it-important-to-apply-transformation –  Mar 27 '16 at 01:29
  • Blender does make a list of all transformations made to the file. Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46556/is-it-possible-to-show-the-history-on-a-detachable-window/46558#46558 –  Mar 27 '16 at 01:33
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    Good point, the operators do need to be applied to get precise dimensions. Edited for this. But I wouldn't call Blender's history of operations construction history, simply because it doesn't get saved in the .blend. If someone is looking at measuring something after they've reloaded the file, the history of transforms (and all operations, really) are gone. – Mike Belanger Mar 27 '16 at 14:31