AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

I have a very simple surface. All of the elevations defining it, are set in feet. When I click on the surface it tells me my max and min elevations are in feet matching the points that I have defining the surface.

Here is the kicker, when I run a distance it is measuring the Z distance in inches and not feet. As you can see by the attached image the distance is 95' but the elevation change is 1 3/8".  The actual points defining the surface are 1.28' difference. If I were to do a spot elevation on the surface, it would give me the correct elevation in feet.

Can anyone tell me whats going on? I am guessing that this is some sort of variable that I have missed, but damned if I can find it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[#2]

Try setting your units to decimal feet rather than feet & inches.

[#3]

Unfortunately that didn't work. It just changed my measurements to inches instead. But kept the z measurement the same.

Any other ideas?

[#4]

Can you repeat the screen shot with the new units setting?

[#5]

Here is a screen shot of the units set to decimal instead of architectural.

[#6]

I've always worked in metric so I don't really know how the imperial settings work in C3D, but I know that it is always meant to be feet, not inches.  It looks like all your distances are off by a factor of 12, so you may have started up wrong from the begining, I don't know.

Could really do with someone else jumping in here to help, but unfortunatly when the topic is marked as solved others may not look into it.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

Your advice lead me to the solution. Our office has been bouncing back and forth between imperial and metric and I don't have enough experience to do this successfully.

Here is the solution. Autocad wants the drawing in Decimal Feet. I went back and scaled down the drawing by 12 so that all measurements of units were in feet. (I.E. 9.50' instead of 9'-6") Now scaling the drawing also scales the Z elevation so I had to follow the following link to redifine my points after I scaled. See this thread for how to do that (http://www.civil4d.com/2009/10/scale-your-points-keep-the-elevations/)

And now, everything makes sense again.

I'll have to reset my viewports, but small price to pay.

[#8]

Make sure that you are setting your units correctly in the Drawing Settings. Go to the Toolspace and on the Settings tab - Right click on the active drawing and select, Edit Drawing Settings. Set up your units on Units and Zone tab and check 'Set AutoCAD Variables to match'.

Here is how I have mine set up for feet