title: "Scale"
category: component
---

The scale component defines a shrinking or stretching transformation of an
entity. It takes three scaling factors for the X, Y, and Z axes. All entities
inherently have the scale component.

The example below shrinks the entity in half along the X direction, maintains
the same scale factor along the Y direction, and stretches the entity by
two-fold along the Z direction:

```html
<a-entity scale="0.5 1 2"></a-entity>
```

Note that the scaling factors cannot be 0 or else the matrix transformations in
WebGL will break.

| Value | Description                                                  | Default Value |
|-------|--------------------------------------------------------------|----------------
| x     | Scaling factor in the X direction.                           | 1             |
| y     | Scaling factor in the Y direction.                           | 1             |
| z     | Scaling factor in the Z direction.                           | 1             |

## Reflection

Scaling factors can be negative, which results in a reflection.

A notable use for this is for sky spheres. Sky spheres contain the entire scene
and have a texture mapped on the interior surface. To accomplish this, we can
reflect, or invert, the sphere in the Z-direction.

```html
<a-entity geometry="primitive: sphere; radius: 1000" material="src: sky.png">
          scale="1 1 -1"></a-entity>
```