topic Problem with Area and not coplanar points in AutoCAD Forum

Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 10:16:14 GMT

Hi, I have a problem with Area command and not coplanar points, but they are definitely, I created new points to test it and the same, tried all of the solutions found on forum, even when I try Area without selecting anything, just some empty space, still getting same message ...

BUT!! what's interesting, when I zoom out and try it at some distance away from detail in my drawing, then it works on empty space, but if I draw something there than it stops working again...anyone knows what is this issue?

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

Kent1Cooper — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 10:30:17 GMT

@tomislav_vargek wrote:

... still getting same message ...

What is that message?

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 10:34:13 GMT

when selecting empty space I get lines are not coplanar, even when selecting points, I get LINES are not coplanar

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:58:50 GMT

FLATTEN command by chance offer any help with the content you've drawn and existing?

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:02:08 GMT

here's the file, I've tried everything..

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:00:13 GMT

@tomislav_vargek wrote:
here's the file, I've tried everything..

Your content is not all on the same plane: it is spread out across Z direction. Only zooming in and out is never going to show that correctly

I suspect you are selecting objects from many plane, aka not coplanar.

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

Kent1Cooper — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:00:12 GMT

[The numbers don't look so extreme that this would be the problem, but I'll ask anyway:]

Could it be the distance from the origin? AREA picking in empty space closer to the origin seems to work. Moving it all closer to the origin, or Copying all the content out to and pasting it into a new drawing closer to the origin, seems to let it work. [FLATTEN doesn't fix it, for me.]

But as large as your distances from the origin are, I wouldn't expect that to be the reason. People come here with far-from-the-origin issues when things are at distances like 10 to the 14th power away, but you're nowhere near that. But try it -- do you really need to be 600000 units away?

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

Kent1Cooper — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:08:32 GMT

@pendean wrote:
.... Your content is not all on the same plane: .....

That doesn't explain the fact that an AREA command gives not-co-planar complaints even when just picking spots in empty space [after the second one], unrelated to any object(s). Even after FLATTENing, even ensuring all Layers are thawed and on, even after ensuring it's in the World Coordinate System and PLAN view, even with running Osnap off so it won't be snapping to something unseen. That's the big puzzler to me, and why I raised the distance-from-the-origin question, grabbing at straws.

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:13:06 GMT

@Kent1Cooper wrote:
@pendean wrote:
.... Your content is not all on the same plane: .....
That doesn't explain the fact that an AREA command gives not-co-planar complaints even when just picking spots in empty space [after the second one], unrelated to any object(s). Even after FLATTENing, even ensuring all Layers are thawed and on, even after ensuring it's in the World Coordinate System and PLAN view, even with running Osnap off so it won't be snapping to something unseen. That's the big puzzler to me, and why I raised the distance-from-the-origin question, grabbing at straws.

Sadly the OP (at least from what I can tell) did not leave any examples of their 'area' attempts and work in the DWG file, so we don't really know what all they did in it. Do you see anything? Like you, I don't think their distances from 0,0,0 is an issue either.

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:22:57 GMT

I've submitted unaltered drawing (no flattening or anything so you can try your way), and like I have said, I tried everything mentioned, and you can try drawing some closed lines, new points or empty space, and Area always returns no planar on third point... As for large coordinates, they are surveyors coordinates in my country and all of my drawings are like that

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:31:57 GMT

@tomislav_vargek wrote:
...and Area always returns no planar on third point... ...

That is likely to happen if your points are like these for example, but your posted DWG file does not clearly show (at least to me) where you are clicking. Why not check your selections locations for your self by drawing lines between your points selections then rotate your UCS

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:32:39 GMT

like i've mentioned, even selecting EMPTY SPACE returns error, it's like acad's 'subconsciously' osnaping to something..it's weird, like there's irregularly shaped bubble in which it doesn't work

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:03:19 GMT

@tomislav_vargek wrote:
like i've mentioned, even selecting EMPTY SPACE returns error, it's like acad's 'subconsciously' osnaping to something..it's weird, like there's irregularly shaped bubble in which it doesn't work

How do we recreate that

And as noted by others, do you really need your content to be so far away from 0,0,0 (which can cause issues for some users except I cannot reproduce them)?

Also, your DWG files units are mm, but you seem to have an override to fake it to be meters (in other words, your drawing is incorrectly scaled by 1000x)

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

Kent1Cooper — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:29:50 GMT

@pendean wrote:
.... How do we recreate that ....

Well, I went to make a little demonstration video, to show what they described in action, but today I am able to use AREA by picking in open space, normally. I was not able to do that yesterday -- I would pick two points, and on picking the third it would complain about non-coplanar-ness, and the point would not be registered in the command, and it would prompt again. Same everything today [AutoCAD version, operating system, even browser, even re-downloaded the original drawing], but now it's working -- I can't imagine why the difference. That doesn't help to solve their problem, of course, but I definitely had the same problem yesterday....

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:39:20 GMT

@Kent1Cooper wrote:
...but today I am able to use AREA by picking in open space, normally. I was not able to do that yesterday...

I wonder if the OP just needs to restart their PC as well?

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:48:32 GMT

Your post gave me an idea, so I went to colleague and on his acad2024 area works normally on same unaltered drawing, it even works with points with different z value, so it must be something with the acad2020 in my office

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

tomislav_vargek — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 16:06:40 GMT

as for units you pandean speak of, i haven't altered any of them...the differences might have arisen from inserting blocks and parts from other drawings and then scaling separately vector objects from dimensions as we frequently do in our line of work (but that never caused any issues like this) , for coordinates i've already said that objects must be positioned precisely on them cause the drawings are used for staking out by us surveyors and in my country such are the values of our datum (and that also never caused any issues like this)

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pkramesh9HUWG — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 13:52:03 GMT

This seems to be still an unsolved issue.

Regards,

Ramesh.P.K.

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

pendean — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:32:41 GMT

@pkramesh9HUWG wrote:
This seems to be still an unsolved issue.

You'll have to share a DWG file here and elaborate on the exact issue you specifically are experiencing please.

Re: Problem with Area and not coplanar points

autoid374ceb4990 — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:15:29 GMT

I loaded the drawing that the OP posted in post #5, ran it through TrueView because I have an old version of AutoCAD, loaded it into AutoCAD, and the AREA command works correctly in any blank space that I tried. When I loaded the drawing into TrueView I received the message that "This DWG was saved by an application that was not developed or licensed by Autodesk". Perhaps TrueView deleted whatever was causing the problem???