Drawing Units

[Anonymous]

My dimensions are displaying in inches and I need to change it to feet. I use the distance command and it says a object is 2 units long. My units are feet so it should be 2 feet long, but when I dimension it, it reads 2" long. Under drawing settings, my units are set to feet. Under ambient settings, my distance, dimension, coordinates, etc. are all set to foot. What else do I need to change to get feet to display on my dimensions?

Thanks,
-Dan

[Anonymous]

Maybe your dimension style has the inch symbol " as a suffix?

--
Matt Kolberg
Global CADD Systems - A division of Cansel

"dstat13" wrote in message news:6389417@discussion.autodesk.com...
> My dimensions are displaying in inches and I need to change it to feet. I
> use the distance command and it says a object is 2 units long. My units
> are feet so it should be 2 feet long, but when I dimension it, it reads 2"
> long. Under drawing settings, my units are set to feet. Under ambient
> settings, my distance, dimension, coordinates, etc. are all set to foot.
> What else do I need to change to get feet to display on my dimensions?
>
> Thanks,
> -Dan

[Anonymous]

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like your AutoCAD DIM style is architectural.

Use Civil 3d Annotation to label the distance.

Matthew Anderson, PE


On 5/11/2010 12:59 PM, Matt Kolberg wrote:
> Maybe your dimension style has the inch symbol " as a suffix?
>
>

[Anonymous]

okay, but then how do I call out something is 4'-5" or something?

[Anonymous]

You don't in Civil 3D. Well, you can, but it can be tricky and it's not
generally the accepted industry standard. You would need to change Civil
3D's drawing units to inches.

--
Matt Kolberg
Global CADD Systems - A division of Cansel

"dstat13" wrote in message news:6389451@discussion.autodesk.com...
> okay, but then how do I call out something is 4'-5" or something?

[Anonymous]

AutoCAD Dimension with Architectural style expects an AutoCAD unit to be
in inches, not feet.

Matthew Anderson, PE


On 5/11/2010 1:28 PM, dstat13 wrote:
> okay, but then how do I call out something is 4'-5" or something?
>

[Anonymous]

Edit the AutoCAD dimension style. Click on the Primary Units tab and set the
scale factor to 12.

John

[Anonymous]

That was suppose to be a reply to Dan.

John

[omc-usnr]

In the civil world, there is no reason to call out dimensions in feet & inches. You call out in feet & tenths. 5'-4" = 5.33'. Your dimstyle should be in decimal feet and your angular units should be set in Degrees, Mins, Sec's. Your precision should be per your firms requirements, but the industry standard is usually hundredths of a foot linear and to the nearest second of arc. Most construction crews can't get it closer than a hundredth anyway. (Once had a guy tell me "you measure it with a micrometer, and we cut it with a chainsaw".)

One other are you might look at is how your UNITS are set. This can cause problems with scaling and labeling too.

Reid

[RKincer]

No this is a problem.  I have the same problem as dstat13.  I use Civil3D almost everyday at work and just now ran into this problem.  I am using C3D to create the site plan and the building layout for the same job.  SO it is NOT "industry standard" to never use architectural dimensioning in land development.  Just as dstat13 stated, my dimension length is 2 "units," thus when I dimension the item it shows up as 2.0000 when I use the engineering dim unit format.  This would theoretically mean 2 feet because my drawing units are set to feet.  When I switch that same dim style to architectural units it reads the measurement as 2".  This is completely wrong.  This means that Civil3D is reading EVERY dimension in inches.  Just to ensure and explain to you that this isn't because of the template that I'm using (one that my company created), follow me:  if you open up the standard C3D template named " _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS"  (find it, it'll typically be on your C: drive) and draw a line 2 units long and dimension it using the standard dim style it will show up as 2.0000 with no units being shown.  Now, if you go edit the only dim style in the drawing (Standard) and change the unit format to Arch and dimension that same line a second time using the edited style, it will now read 2".  Same line, same everything, except the dimension unit format.  All reading in inches.  THIS IS A PROBLEM.  PLEASE FIX IT.

Just so that you can see what I'm talking about, I've included the drawing that I just walked you through.  Its C3D 2010.

[jmayo-EE]

There is nothing to fix. THe program works as expected. Create a new dim style and set the units to arch & edit the unit scale factor appropriately. Place the new dim style in your template so you can use it again. See the attached.

[jmayo-EE]

Oops. Here's the attchment.

[RKincer]

That is the temporary fix to the problem.  I'm not sure that you understand. THE DRAWING UNITS ARE SET UP AS FEET, AUTOCAD IS READING THEM IN INCHES! If the drawing is set up in feet, I should not have to override the "norm" to have it dimension in the units that I already have the drawing set to.  So, when I do make this change that you suggest (which I already did before you commented just for the sake of getting my work done) I am only changing the one dim style, this doesn't fix a bigger problem that the program is reading my units at 1/12 of the specified scale.  Drawing Units = Feet, Dimension Units = Inches.  Some how these don't match up. Here's another suggestion, why don't I just draw everything a 12 times the scale I want it to be.  So, I should just draw a 24 "foot" line so that my dimensions read out correctly.  Not as easy as your suggestion but just as ridiculous.

[Sinc]

---

@ryankincer6822 wrote:

Here's another suggestion, why don't I just draw everything a 12 times the scale I want it to be.  So, I should just draw a 24 "foot" line so that my dimensions read out correctly.  Not as easy as your suggestion but just as ridiculous.

---

That's exactly what people do.

In the Civil world, we don't work in inches, with the exception of structural plans.  The reason for that is that the structural plans are tied so closely to the architectural plans, and Architects by convention use feet and inches in the US.  We in the Civil world wish they wouldn't, but they do, and that's not likely to change.

The Architects and Structural engineers do exactly what you said...  They draw everything with 1 modelspace unit = 1 inch, as oppose to what we do in the Civil world.  And the dimensions work exactly the way they expect.

The upshot is that if you're working in the Civil world, at least in the US, you'll be working in feet, with 1 modelspace unit = 1 foot.  If you want to label such a drawing in feet and inches, you need to setup a Dimension Style that has a factor of 12 in it, so it works correctly.  If Autodesk changed this, they would annoy the hell out of the people who work with 1 modelspace unit = 1 inch.  So, while you may feel this is only a "temporary fix", you may want to try to accept the fact that the program is not likely to change, and your "temporary fix" is more of a permanent one.  At least, that route is far less stressful than getting all worked up over something that is unlikely to change... 

[Anonymous]

As has been mentioned, this is by design. It is one of the powers of AutoCAD (this is not a Civil 3D only scenario). AutoCAD is used for so many different reasons that what a drawing unit REPRESENTS is up to the user. Whether that unit that you are drawing in represents a foot, inch, meter, mm, etc is up to the user. You select that through the drawing units dialog box and that sets two different variables: LUNITS and AUNITS.

However, the units used to DIMENSION do not have to be the same as the drawing. This provides tons of flexibility where you can design in one unit (the drawing units, or LUNIT) and dimension in a completely different unit type (the dimension unit, or DIMLUNIT). There are two different variables that AutoCAD is reading so AutoCAD is not 'misreading' the units.

If for some reason, you need a Civil Engineering drawing to be dimensioned in Architectural units (already mentioned in other replies how rare and unusual this is) then you have two options:

1. Draw all items in architectural units which is 1 drawing unit = 1" as Sinc explained (This is NOT probably a good idea if using Civil 3D and especially if you use feature lines)

2. Draw all items in decimal units which would translate as 1 drawing unit = 1.0' and follow John Mayo's suggestion about overriding the scale factor in your dimension style. This is not a temporary fix nor a workaround but a proper use of the DIMLFAC variable to take advantage of the power mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to log in to say that this discussion really helps. some incredibly knowledgeable people on here and these kinds of discussions help even if someone doesnt have the exact same issue. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thank you! This was very helpful!