Community
Civil 3D Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Civil 3D Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular AutoCAD Civil 3D topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Z distance in inches not feet

7 REPLIES 7
SOLVED
Reply
Message 1 of 8
ajfernandes
2263 Views, 7 Replies

Z distance in inches not feet

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.

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
troma
in reply to: ajfernandes

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


Mark Green

Working on Civil 3D in Canada

Message 3 of 8
ajfernandes
in reply to: troma

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

 

Any other ideas?

Message 4 of 8
troma
in reply to: ajfernandes

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


Mark Green

Working on Civil 3D in Canada

Message 5 of 8
ajfernandes
in reply to: troma

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

Message 6 of 8
troma
in reply to: ajfernandes

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.


Mark Green

Working on Civil 3D in Canada

Message 7 of 8
ajfernandes
in reply to: troma

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.

Message 8 of 8
AllenJessup
in reply to: ajfernandes

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

 

s1.PNG

 



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report