Coordinate System for Engineering Projects - Survey Feet

[Anonymous]

We are having a bit of a debate in our office and we were hoping someone can give  us some insight.   When you are working on civil engineering project where you are recieving files form Architects and Landscape Architects, and sending out "Dumbed Down" AutoCAD files to folks who don't have Civil3d, do you change your Civil3d Coordinate System to survey feet & specify your state plane coordinate system?  

[AllenJessup]

We always have the State Plane system set in our drawing. Whether Survey or International feed depends on what the State Plane system is in. In our case it is Survey Feet. We use GPS and have a lot of date in State Plane. That is set in our template

If we get drawings that aren't in State Plane we do what we can to adjust them to State Plane. That might include field work to coordinate points in the drawings.

It's my opinion that it's better to have that set in the template even though you might not be working in a drawing that is currently in that system. Remember. You should always insert a drawing you receive in to a fresh drawing from your template rather than opening it directly. Ideally if you don't have to edit anything in that drawing. It would be attached as and Xref.

If you then "dumbing down" the drawing the Zone settings will be lost anyway..

Allen Jessup