A (hopefully quick and silly) question about panel dimensions

Development
1

The panel guide says:

Open the “Document Properties” panel (Shift+Ctrl+D), and make sure “Units” and “Display units” are set to “mm” (“px” is not supported)

Set the height to 128.5 mm and the width to a desired multiple of 5.08 mm (1 HP in Eurorack)…

When I do that and save the document, the SVG looks reasonable:

   ...
   version="1.1"
   viewBox="0 0 50.799999 128.5"
   height="128.5mm"
   width="50.799999mm">
   ...

However, I’ve opened up a lot of panels from different developers to see how they work, and every one I’ve looked at is saved in pixels, and every one of them is 380 pixels tall (implying a DPI of about 75). For example, the panel for SEQ3 in the Fundamentals collection looks like:

   ...
   width="330.49908"
   height="380"
   viewBox="0 0 87.444549 100.54166"
   version="1.1"
   id="svg12553"
   ...

When I open them in Inkscape the are 380 pixels, and when I change to mm as the unit they are not 128.5 mm tall, as my default DPI is 96.

I don’t understand the disconnect. My understanding must be flawed, because these two facts seem to contradict each other.

What am I missing? I’ve looked through the forums and haven’t found anything (but perhaps I just haven’t done the correct search).

Thanks in advance!

2

VCV used to recommend pixel dimensions. Then it changed to mm to more accurately reflect the size of Eurorack modules. The documentation says px are not supported but they are (meaning that they work at least for now…). A lot of developers have not bothered changing their graphics from px to mm as for now everything is working as is. Even some Fundamental panels and components are still px I believe.

If you want to check some panels that are made in mm, check MindMeld and I think Marc’s Impromptu modules are all converted now too.

If you are starting out fresh, best to use mm.

1 Like
3

Looking at a MindMeld you are correct. Thank you!

   inkscape:version="0.92.4 (5da689c313, 2019-01-14)"
   height="128.5mm"
   width="142.24001mm"
   sodipodi:docname="eqmaster.svg"
4

I would hope so because I made them :slight_smile:

4 Likes
5

yes, all the comments here pretty much answer it. And I believe that newer VCV modules use mm. You have noticed that switching units from px to mm is non trivial. There are ways to make it work, but you need to be careful.

btw, I’m still using pixels, as my drawing tool of choice does not support mm.

6

wow, didn’t even know that this had changed. still using pixels too.

This seems like a really bad idea, since all the graphics in code uses pixels. It was bad enough when Inkskape had the y coordinate inverted.

7

Previous conversation with lots of useful info:

8

Ah, yes. I always forget there is a lot of history in this forum.