toolsdimensional

toolsdimensional is an open-source software library and ecosystem designed to manage dimensional data and units across software projects. It provides a dimension-aware arithmetic system that enforces unit consistency and enables reliable conversions, scaling, and coordinate transformations for applications in science, engineering, and data visualization.

The project aims for broad language compatibility, with official bindings and community contributions across popular development environments. At its core lies a unit registry, a quantity type that couples a numeric value with a unit, and rules that propagate dimension checks through arithmetic and data manipulation. The design favors extensibility, allowing users to define custom units, prefixes, and derivations.

Key capabilities include unit conversion, dimensional analysis at runtime with clear error reporting for mismatches, support for derived quantities (such as velocity, force, and energy), and interoperable formatting for display, logging, and serialization. It provides lightweight adapters for common data formats and lightweight integration points with numerical libraries.

toolsdimensional is used in scientific simulations, engineering workflows, data pipelines, and educational tools where unit consistency is essential. The project emphasizes portability, testing, and a permissive open-source license to encourage integration into a wide range of projects.

History and scope: the initiative began in the early 2020s as a community-driven effort to address inconsistencies in domain-specific unit handling. Since then it has grown through collaborative contributions, documentation, and example projects, while maintaining a focus on correctness, clarity, and minimal performance overhead.