Setting up a metric dwt starting with a custom imperial dwt

[Jay_B]

I'm setting up some Civil 3D Metric dwt's & we work in Imperial units and have all of our dwt's set up for Imperial units. I'm looking for best practice tips on how to approach this task? Ideally I'd like to use what we have and not re-invent the wheel if that's possible & just convert the needed settings from Imperial to Metric.

After some experimenting it seems merely changing the "Edit Drawing Settings" Drawing Units, Ambient Settings and ddunits etc. this only gets a portion of the unit settings switched throughout the dwt.

I'm unable to switch the "Default Scale List" under Options>User Preferences>Default Scale List from Imperial to Metric as it keeps reverting to Imperial.

Additionally as I view the contents of the "Label Style Composer" of random C3d Label Styles I see inches as a unit etc. (Is there a way to globally convert these style unit settings to Metric)?

Something that seems like it should be fairly straight forward is proving to be anything but...

If any one else has any experience with this, any tips would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks,

Jay

[AllenJessup · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Something that seems like it should be fairly straight forward is proving to be anything but...

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It's nowheres near simple. I'm doing this for someone now.

I'd suggest starting with a blank metric template. Create a new drawing with No Template and save it as a DWT. Make sure all the ambient settings are as you wish them. Also go through the whole General section and do the same.

Open both the new metric dwt and the imperial one you want to duplicate in one instance of Civil 3D. Drag each style, one at a time, from the imperial dwt to the metric one. After you drag each style in you need to edit it and change it from Ft to Meters. Make sure you look at every component that has a distance or elevation in it.

Mind numbing work.

Allen

[Jay_B]

Allen,

Thanks for the info!

Jay

[rferdon]

I have been having the same issue trying to convert from imperial to metric.  I think everything is switched to metric but when I set my viewport to a certain metric scale it is not correct and does not plot properly.  Is there a way to copy the scale list from the default autocad metric template to mine?  I have tried to set up custom scales to match the scales from the default metric template but it is not working. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ryan

[Jay_B]

Ryan,

This could be due to Page Setups in the dwg being set to Inches.

If this is case change them to mm & see if that helps.

I also remember a post a while back re: scale list issues.

[rferdon]

Thanks that fixed it.

[Jay_B]

You're welcome, glad I could help.