What Are Display Units?

Display Units control how measurements are shown to you — regardless of what unit your point cloud files use internally.

When you take a measurement in the viewer, the result is always converted to and displayed in your chosen Display Unit.

"Show all measurements in ___ — no matter what unit the point cloud is in."

Display Units vs. Base Units

These are two separate settings and it's important to understand the difference:

Base Unit Display Unit
What it defines How coordinate values are interpreted How measurements are shown to you
Set by File metadata or manually per file You, in the Units panel
Affects Internal calculation accuracy Visual output only
Example File coordinates are in Meters Results displayed in Centimeters

Example:

If your point cloud has a Base Unit of Meters but your Display Unit is set to Centimeters:

A measured distance of 2 meters will be shown as 200 cm

The underlying data is unchanged — only the display is converted.

How to Set Display Units

Open the Units panel from the toolbar settings and:

  1. Select a unit system — Metric or Imperial
  2. 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.