Allow other units of measurement for “Tolerance” and “Snap to Point” settings (Selection & Anchor Display)
For the “Tolerance” and “Snap to Point” settings in “Illustrator > Settings… > Selection & Anchor Display… > Selection,” it would be very helpful if other units of measurement, with a specific request for millimeters (mm), could be specified. Currently, the only option is a integer “px” (pixel) value, which is not precise enough for some of the high-precision work that our teams perform.
Ken Lunde
shared this idea
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Hmm... This value is used for screen-space snapping, because it’s zoom independent. And it's used for SELECTION, giving us, human users, some slack to not always click pixel-to-pixel to select points.
If we imagine it being able to use absolute units instead, like 1 micron, it’d mean you’d have to zoom a lot to just select a point...
The value for snapping though... I think you mean the ability to control the snapping strength distance, correct? -
Ken Lunde
commented
Apologies for the delay in responding. The following is from the teams that requested this particular feature:
The work we do in Illustrator is the documentation to give the content, positioning, and treatment for artwork on physical goods. Pixel units do make sense in the digital space, but is meaningless in the physical world.
Illustrator currently allows users to set units to mm in some places, but not all. In other words, it seems the app does support measurements in physical space in some places, but not everywhere.
Although the pixel may be seen as an astronomically small unit of measure, when making physical things, microns are not uncommon from a tolerance perspective (0.001mm). Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machined parts are used for manufacturing and provide that level of precision, which yes, is outside human capabilities, but not uncommon.
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Ken, this value works in screen space, with your display’s pixels, zoom independent.
It doesn’t relate to your canvas units at all, therefore linear units can’t be used.
1 px you show is an extremely tight area to perform clicks, requiring inhuman precision!
Why do you set it like this? Can you please tell a bit more about your workflow, just to understand how do you expect it to work?
