Metric Units in DM Photometrics
By default, Design Master Photometrics uses Imperial units: feet, inches, and foot-candles. However, by making a few changes to your customization, you can easily convert your current and future projects to metric units.
Changing Units on Current Projects
To convert the current project from Imperial to metric, follow these steps:
- Run the Options command and go to the Units section of the Options command.
- Set Project is metric to Yes. For more information about what this does, see “The Project is Metric Option” below.
- Set Distance unit to the base unit of your drawing; meter, centimeter, and millimeter are available for metric units. See the Base Units and Photometrics Calculations article in the knowledge base for more information about determining the right setting.
- Set Illuminance unit to Lux. The illuminance levels displayed in your calculation areas and calculation schedules will be in lux rather than foot-candles.
- Press the OK button to save your changes and close the dialog box.
- Run the Calculate command.
- Press the Boundary Areas->Edit Title, Column Labels, and Column Order button. The General Photometric Schedule Label Display and Order dialog box will open.
- Modify the Label rows to reference lux rather than foot-candles.
- Press the OK button to save your changes and return to the Calculate Photometrics dialog box.
- Repeat steps 7-9 for the Boundary Lines->Edit Title, Column Labels, and Column Order button.
If you have any calculation schedules already inserted on the drawing, their labels will update when you recalculate.
Setting Units on Future Projects
When you start a new project, you can use the Standards Database field to set the database that will be used to populate the default values for the project. By default, we include the following standards databases for different units of measurement and drawing base units:
- Imperial — Foot Base Unit
- Imperial — Inch Base Unit
- Metric — Centimeter Base Unit
- Metric — Meter Base Unit
If you have standards databases that were present before we added metric functionality to the software and don’t want to lose any changes you’ve made, you can modify them to use metric by following these steps:
- (Optional) Copy one of your existing standards databases using the Manage Standards Databases command. Having a copy will make it easier to switch between projects in Imperial and projects in metric, and you’ll have a backup in case something goes wrong.
- Run the Options->Edit Standards List command and select the standards database you want to modify. Go to the Units section of the Options->Edit Standards List command.
- Set Project is metric to Yes. For more information about what this does, see “The Project is Metric Option” below.
- Set Distance unit to the typical base unit of your drawings; meter, centimeter, and millimeter are available for metric units. See the Base Units and Photometrics Calculations article in the knowledge base for more information about determining the right setting.
- Set Illuminance unit to Lux. The illuminance levels displayed in your calculation areas and calculation schedules will be in lux rather than foot-candles.
- Press the OK button to save your changes and close the dialog box.
- Run the Edit Calculation Area Schedule Standards List command and select the standards database you want to modify.
- Modify the Label rows to reference lux rather than foot-candles.
- Press the OK button to save your changes and close the dialog box.
- Repeat Steps 7-9 for the Edit Calculation Line Schedule Standards List command.
The Project is Metric Option
When the Project is metric option is enabled, this setting will allow you to view and set distances and elevations in meters rather than feet and inches. Any measurements already set will be converted; for example, if your default calculation area grid spacing is 10′, it will be converted to 3.048 m.
The following commands and fields are affected:
