Draw in Meters problem

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone, it's the first time writing here beacause I cant really solve a problem in autocad 2011. I study civil engineering and in class we used older versions of autocad and now I have to do some floor plans in my Autocad which is 2011. The problem is that I open autocad,then select units and change the inches to meters. When I start drawing a line and for example type in "5" for 5 meters the line is too small like a dot. It wasnt like this in older versions, so what I did is zoom in so much in order to see the real line. Now when I am going to print the plot it's gonna be ok or it will be shown too small? I want a 1:50 scaling though. And one more thing, when i zoom in too much to see the line the linear is too big,how can I change that? Sorry if these questions are silly but I am trying to learn autocad on my own and I really can't figure out some things, so I appreciate any help, thank you!

[Patchy · Accepted solution]

Show us a screen shot of the UNITS that you used.

There isn't any place to select units and change from inches to meters with UNITS command.

There is however there is -DWGUNITS

[steve216586]

Patchy,

I think he's refering to the UNITS dialog. And the INSUNITS variable (see attached)

[HullDrafter]

Patchy,

Thank you for clarifying the difference between units and dwgunits. I have a small Lisp routine that used dwgunits and it satisfied what I needed for my drawings. I just didn't realize that the units command didn't reference the size of units in my drawings. In my case, it was always inches. Thank you for providing an answer that I can use and improve my own capabilities with.

[Anonymous]

Ok so if I type "UNITS" a screen appears and I change inches to meters? What is the point in that? I used "-DWGUNITS" too and it asks differents questions in the command line , then it changes something or not? It is still too small and all these things I mentioned before. All I have to do is zoom in and then when I print them will be in 1:50 scaling in meters now I have used -dwgunits?

[Anonymous]

Yes I refer to the attachment steven made. I want to draw in meters and absolutely meters. How to change it and If I change it , the plot is gonna be in meters too if I scale it in 1:50? I want to draw a floor plan in meters from the start, what steps should I follow before I begin drawing?

[steve216586]

If you don't have a template with Meters as the current unit, you should select NEW and then the acadiso.dwt. This template provided by AutoDesk, is for metric drawing units. You can then proceed with -dwgunits and change that to meters. Then go to UNITS to change the way things are inserted into the drawing. The "UNITS" dialog is providing the command line input and insertion units for blocks etc. You will also need to adjust your dimensions.

Now when you type in "5" at the command line, a line 5 meters long should be drawn.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Steve. That's what I was doing. I opened acadiso but then I didnt use "-DWGUNITS" because I dont know how to use it. When it says about the dimension u want I just type the number that matches the meters?

[steve216586]

That's it! That is all there is to do. 🙂

[Bob_Zurunkle]

Wouldn't it be nice if AutoCAD recognized m or cm or mi or mm etc and make the proper length on the fly....

[dan]

Old thread, hopefully not a dead one.

Day 1 with AutoCAD here.

Im looking for a way to input line lengths in mm. I am used to drawing on A3 at 1:100. I would prefer to input 6m (6cm on the page) as "6000". Is there a way to customise this? 

Thanks in advance.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Im looking for a way to input line lengths in mm. I am used to drawing on A3 at 1:100.

>> I would prefer to input 6m (6cm on the page) as "6000". Is there a way to customise this? 

Please recognize that plot-scale is not drawing scale.

By default you always draw 1:1, so if you are working in e.g. geodesy you set your drawing units to Meter and you draw all in Meter. If a house is 12m long you draw a line with 12 units long (independent of any plot scale you might later need).

And in AutoCAD there is no option to enter a unit-shortcut with a distance value like other software can do that. You need to enter the distance in that type of unit your drawing has assigned. So i your drawing is set to Meter and you want a 12m long line the distance to enter is "12", of your drawing is set to MM, and you need a 12m long line you need to enter "12000" as distance.

- alfred -

[rculp]

Bear in mind that printer paper sizes are usually setup in mm, not meters.  Consequently page setups in paperspace for plotting will usually include a "border" in millimeters to match available print sizes for the printers.

If you model in meters and then attempt to plot on a mm sheet, the plot scale must compensate for the difference.

From another thread:

The model components are drawn with unit = 1 METER

The layout uses 1 unit = 1 Millimeter.  In the layout 1:100 is 1 unit = 100mm, the model is 1000 times smaller than it should be so it would appear as 1 unit is 100 METERS.

Instead of a viewport being 1000 units (mm) by 850 units (mm) make your viewport (paper size) match the model scale 1 ,000 x 0 ,850 (meters to meters), then set the scale of the viewport to 1:100.  Then 100 units (meters) of drawing will be displayed on a one unit (meter) long sheet

To make it work in a millimeter sheet/viewport size at a true scale of 1:100 the viewport scale will need to be 10:1 to fit 100 meters in a sheet 1 ,000 units (mm) long.  (scale is 1000/100 = 10/1). Then 100 units (meters) of drawing will be displayed on a 1000 unit (mm) long sheet.

[serkancavuslar]

Hi All Users,