
Concept of Scaling 

when we visualize the act of scaling one of these boards, we 
assume it keeps the same number of elements, its relative 
proportions, and the same shape it had before the scaling 
took place. In other words, it Is exactly the same object but 
it is now a diff;erent size. If we cut the 4 by 8 it would be 
composed of fewer elements than when we started; in 
essence It becomes a different object. If we attach a I by 4 
to another it would be composed of more elements than 
when we started; the two combine to form one new and 
ditferent object. 

To illustrate the concept of scaling, in the movie "Honey. I 
Shrunk the Kids", the children are shrunk or scaled down to 
a miniature size. The children are exactly the same. i.e. the 
parts of their body remaln in relative proportion. they aren't 
composed of any more or less elements, and they have 
exactly the same shape that they had before they were 
scaled down. If any of these characteristics had changed. 
they might not have been recoguizable as the original 
chlldren; we would have thought that they were new and 
difterent children, thus shaftering the illusion. In "Honey, I 
Blew Up the Kid", the child is scaled up; but again, his body 
parts have the same relative proportions and shape and he 
is composed of the same number of elements as before. 

Though we visually understand the concept of scaling in the 
real world, it's an unnatural phenomenon. This fact is what 
makes these two movies fantasies. But, with regards to 
flnishing our deck, wouldn't It be easier if you could just 
instantly scale the 4 by 8 down or scale one of the I by 4's 
up to fit that last 2 by 4 space? 3D modelers do just that 
with scaling factors. 

3 D Scaling 

If you were building this deck in the LightWave3D Modeler 
you could scale that 4 by 8 board down by a scaling factor 
of 0.5 with numeric and interactive methods. This would 
reduce each dlmension (4 8 8) to 50 percent of its original 
size, from 4 by 8 to 2 by 4. Wtlat if the original size of the 
board was 6.78 by 2.33. An implicit modeler would 
probably forego accuracy and use the Interactive scaling tool 
just to get it done. An explicit modeler would use a 
calculator to flgure out the proper scaling factors and use the 
numeric Scale requester. Wouldn't it be befter just to change 
the size to 2 by 4 by entering 2 inches and 4 inchesP 
