Hello,
I am using AutoCAD 2014.
Just recently my xrefs have been scaling by a factor of 12. What setting controls if an xref scales?
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by acadhelp1. Go to Solution.
Look up INSUNITS in help or the SYSVDLG.
GrantsPirate
Piping and Mech. Designer
Always save a copy of the drawing before trying anything suggested here.
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If something I wrote can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
INSUNITS specifies a drawing-units value for automatic scaling of blocks, images, or xrefs when inserted or attached to a drawing. If the INSUNITS values are different between the host drawing and the xref, AutoCAD scales the incoming xref to match the current scale.
I'm guessing that the drawing you are xrefing is in feet and your drawing is in inches.
Here is the help link for INSUNITS.
Jon
Jon Page
AutoCAD Interaction Designer
Autodesk, Inc.
Curious. Why would an xref be brought into a drawing at any scale other than a scale of 1? For years (decades) I've never had a need to scale an xref.
In the US architectural drawings are done in inches, civil is done in feet. Very common to bring the arch drawing in to the civil drawing and scale the arch drawing so it is at the correct size.
GrantsPirate
Piping and Mech. Designer
Always save a copy of the drawing before trying anything suggested here.
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If something I wrote can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
I know that one... but I rarely, if ever, xref Civil into Arch because of the considerable superfluous info within the Civil xrefs. Usually, all I need Architecturally are the property, curb, and street lines. Everything else in unimportant in the conveyance of the Architectural info. (I suppose Civil would say the same about Architectural).
However, I generally develop the site plan Architecturally to which Civil xrefs my site plan to generate their Civil xref. So the Architecural/Civil correlation is clearly understood.
Would there be ANY other reasons to scale an xref?
Jest2525,
It is not my interest to scale the xref, that was my original problem. However, when the INSUNITS variable is set to 0, instead of 2 (feet), the xref's automatically scale 12x, even though scale factors are set to 1 in the xref dialog.
jest2525 - If you knew that one then why did you ask? Just because you don't do things a certain way doesn't mean lots of other people aren't needing that functionality.
GrantsPirate
Piping and Mech. Designer
Always save a copy of the drawing before trying anything suggested here.
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If something I wrote can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
Calm down dude. Why you so angry? Not a reaction I'd expect from an "Expert Elite".
To answer your question... why does anybody ask? To learn... even at my ripe old age. I never once said "Do it my way as it is the only way!" I'm just curious what other needs may be. Is that ok?
Jeez!
There is no way you can assume any emotion from the words in my response, (hint: there wasn't any) just a simple statement of fact and truly interested in why you asked a question you knew the answer to.
GrantsPirate
Piping and Mech. Designer
Always save a copy of the drawing before trying anything suggested here.
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If something I wrote can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
Jon,
Thanks for that thought; The only thing that has changed since this started to occur, is my coordinate units were changed from US Survey Feet to International Feet, the coordinate remained the same. I do not imagine that should cause this type of problem, but it is a difference of units, as you mentioned.
I'm not arrogant enough to assume there is only one answer. That's why the question was asked.
And yes, words and the assemblage of them into a statement can evoke emotion (even if you said there was none). That's what I read... but then that's just me.
Thanks for your insight though.
Since you changed the units on the location units of one of the drawings, it would scale if you used the option "Locate using Geographic Data". That could also have scaled the xref.
I don't think there is a problem asking why even when you know the answer. My answer might differ from your answer. It helps others searching for similar questions, but not posting.
Hope this helps,
Jon
@jest2525 wrote:
Calm down dude. Why you so angry? Not a reaction I'd expect from an "Expert Elite".
To answer your question... why does anybody ask? To learn... even at my ripe old age. I never once said "Do it my way as it is the only way!" I'm just curious what other needs may be. Is that ok?
Jeez!
Careful here ... your burning a very valuable resource.
Assume no emotion unless it is delivered (eg: or or ) visually.
If you want to see condescending, read a few of pendean's posts and then read GrantsPirate's posts. Notice the difference.
Just FYI
Regards,
DJ
I've been known to be a valuable resourse too. I worked for what today is considered the largest engineering company in the world for almost 2 decades. Though I left them almost 9 years ago, they still call me when they have CAD issues. So you see, I do know a bit about what I do... and am still willing to learn by asking seemingly dumb questions.
All in all though, banter is good if it teaches someone something. Right?
JonPage,
We are using unitless drawing files, and setting INSUNITS=2 seems to be the only setting that resloves the scaling issue. In our Drawing Units dialog, we have Type set to Decimal, Insertion Scale set to "Unitless" which has always been the case as far as I remember. However, since we are using "unitless" insertion scale units, why shouldn't we be using INSUNITS=0?
JonPage,
Ok, I found the problem. We are set-up to use unitless files and INSUNITS=0. However, in one of my refeence files, I found the units were set to feet. So the system will scale the referenced file by a factor of 12 to bring it into a file that is set to unitless. Not usre if there is a way to cause a files units to change to feet from unitless, without explicitly toggling the change?
Well I guess I need to stop using IE for this forum... previewed and all text disappeared.
I'm assuming you are running plain AutoCAD. There are three places that you can change the INSUNITS of the drawing.
INSUNITS sysvar at command line
Drawing Units dialog - UNITS command
Geographic Location dialog - GEOGRAPHICLOCATION command
Other versions of AutoCAD like AutoCAD Architecture have additional ways to specify units.