Selecting a Viewer unit of measurement

🕐 Read time: 2 min

Written By Clark Yuan

Last updated 10 days ago

Overview

Viewer measurement units control how measurements are displayed in the Viewer, regardless of what unit your point cloud files use internally. When you take a measurement, the result is always converted to and displayed in your chosen display unit.

Display units vs. base units

These are two separate settings. It is important to understand the difference:

Base unit

Display unit

What it defines

How coordinate values are interpreted internally

How measurements are shown to you in the Viewer

Set by

File metadata, or manually per file

You, in the Viewer Settings

Affects

Internal calculation accuracy

Visual output only

Where to find

In the Location Banner (Unit: __)

On a measurement in the Viewer

Example

File coordinates are in Meters

Results displayed in Centimeters

Example in practice: If your point cloud has a base unit of Meters but your Viewer display unit is set to Centimeters, a measured distance of 2 meters will be shown as 200 cm in the Viewer. The underlying data is unchanged; only the display is converted.

How to set your display units

  1. Click the Viewer Settings icon in the toolbar at the top of the Viewer.

  2. Select the Units tab.

  3. Select a unit system: Metric or Imperial.

  4. Select your preferred unit within that system.

Metric options: Centimeter · Meter · Kilometer

Imperial options: Inch · Foot · Yard · Mile

Your selection applies immediately to all active measurements in the Viewer.

Important

Changing your display unit:

  • Applies to all measurements shown in the Viewer

  • Does not affect the base unit of any file

  • Does not modify or reproject any point cloud data

  • Can be changed at any time without data loss

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Setting measurement units for non-georeferenced point clouds

Viewer settings (Personal)

Point cloud file settings

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