topic Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly? in AutoCAD Forum

Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

mikegera — Sun, 14 May 2023 17:55:10 GMT

I often download a 3rd party drawings and need to scale it from metric to English. Sometimes, everything scales just fine except for one or two dimensions. I'll end up with a normal drawing that's 1/25.4 of what I started with that has a couple of (literally) massive dimensions on it.

What causes this?

Example attached.

Thanks for any replies.

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

RobDraw — Sat, 13 May 2023 16:42:39 GMT

It's hard to diagnose "sometimes" without seeing an example.

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

imadHabash — Sun, 14 May 2023 07:37:38 GMT

Hi,

>> I often download a 3rd party drawings and need to scale it from metric to English.

In fact, I reserve this procedure!! Where this affects the accuracy of dimensions with the progress of work.

>> What causes this?

We need more details please?

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

WeTanks — Sun, 14 May 2023 08:29:06 GMT

can you share the file?

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

mikegera — Sun, 14 May 2023 17:57:04 GMT

Sorry, I should have attached an example.

I just added one to the OP.

I'll start attaching examples to all question threads from now on.

Thanks.

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

Kent1Cooper — Sun, 14 May 2023 20:22:16 GMT

The "dimensions" that "scale properly" are not Dimensions at all, but independent Mtext and Line and Hatch pattern pieces, so of course they scale as any plain objects do.

The actual Dimensions that don't are behaving as Dimensions do -- they follow the definition of a Dimension Style [though these have an override on the Text Style used], and sizes of elements are based on the effective Dimension-element scaling, etc. If you really want to have Dimensions for different-scaled drawings within the same drawing file, you need to give them overall scale factors appropriate to the scale of their part of the drawing.

In your case, if you change that overall scale in the reduced one to the inverse of 25.4 [in the Properties palette, Fit category, Dim scale overall slot], its parts will be sized appropriately. You also need to compensate for the difference in the actual measured length, since you shrunk that, if you're going to show a length instead of your override non-numerical text. That's already compensated for in the big version [the inverse of 25.4], so for the one in the small version, in the Primary Units category, change the Dim scale linear value to 1.

Re: Why do dimensions sometimes not scale properly?

mikegera — Mon, 15 May 2023 00:39:00 GMT

Thank you. This makes perfect sense.

I appreciate the help.