Automatic Unit Converter BETA
Input free-form values in US units (like 2.5 miles, 6'5", etc.) and we will convert them to most appropriate metric values. Users of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 can add "Convert to Metric" Accelerator into their browser and convert any number of values on the page they are browsing right in the preview window of the accelerator without ever leaving the page. See this blog post for details.
Why not just use Google, Bing, etc.?
- Not everything work automagically with Google and Bing. 60 ft 5 inch works, but 60'5" doesn’t. Often you have to tell Google what your target is. Building an engine to figure that out is one short step away from just converting the values. So I just made that step myself.
- Multiple values in arbitrary text. When you are looking at a text containing multiple values you don’t want to select and convert them one by one.
What about other systems and directions?
I would probably improve US-to-Metric over time and add Imperial-to-Metric. As for converting these back from metric I’m not personally interested in it. That said I’ve created a conversion module in a way to allow expansion and I’m ready to make it open source. So, if someone is up for the task, let me know and I’ll post the project online and implement system selection and specific accelerators for different scenarios into the site.
