Who can do this?
Owners and co-authors of the project create, change and delete custom units. Guests with read or comment access may not. Meter, kilometer and mile can be neither renamed nor changed nor deleted.
Managing units of measurement
Units of measurement define how you state map scales and travel speeds. The meter is the base.
What is it for?
Your world may not measure distances in kilometers. People there travel in days’ journeys, or merchants count in ells. Under “Measurement units” you create such units for your project.
Your project already comes with three default units: meter, kilometer and mile. The meter is the base. You describe a custom unit with a single number: how many meters make 1 unit?
Picture a conversion note on the kitchen cupboard. It says: 1 cup is 250 milliliters. With that note you can also cook recipes from other countries.
Illumentis converts your units into meters in the same way. That is how a map with a scale in miles and a horse measured in kilometers fit together. For the travel time check, the Illuminatio Engine compares distances and speeds in the base unit.
You choose the unit when setting the scale of a map and the speed of a means of transport.
How it works
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In your project, under “World-building & Characters”, open the “Measurement units” tile.
What you see afterwards: The list with meter, kilometer and mile, marked “Default”, and the meter additionally marked “Base”.
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Click “Add unit” and enter a name in the “Name” field, for example day’s journey.
What you see afterwards: The “Equals (in meters)” field and, above it, buttons under “Templates (real world)”.
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Enter how many meters 1 unit makes, for example 30000 for a day’s journey.
What you see afterwards: A preview line with the conversion of your unit into meters.
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Click “Save”.
What you see afterwards: The new unit in the list, with “Edit”, “Delete” and the note “Not used anywhere”.
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Create a map or a means of transport and choose your unit in the “Unit” field.
What you see afterwards: Below the field is the link “Manage units →”, which takes you back to the list.
Your data
Custom units belong to exactly one project. In the JSON export, the name and factor of the unit appear with the map and with the means of transport. If the import finds no matching unit, it creates one or converts the value into meters.
Limits
By default, a project can hold 10 custom units unless the project owner has the Vastitas add-on, and 50 with the add-on; the three default units do not count. The operators can change these values; Illumentis tells you the value currently in effect in the app once you reach the limit. Deleting only works once no map and no means of transport uses the unit any more. A deleted unit cannot be restored.