topic Re: Rescaling dimensions question in Civil 3D Forum

Rescaling dimensions question

albionpjl — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 10:57:30 GMT

We often get sent dwgs from civil engineers which use a different units scale to the one we use. We use 1 unit=1m but many of our clients use 1unit = 1cm.

This means that I have to recale their drawings before we can use them in our GIS.
The problem comes when the dwg contains dimensions.
When I rescale the dwg to .001 of it's original size, I often end up with these massive dimension lines and numbers plastered over the screen and I can't figure out how to size them down.

Is there a setting that will make them rescale with the dwg?

I tried clicking on one to look at the properties, but I couldn't work out which property might be the one to change manually, and anyway there's usually dozens of the things.
I always end up just deleting them and hoping that they weren't important (They usually aren't but there's always a first time.)

Is there a better way?

I'm using C3d 2017 on Win7

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

jmayo-EE — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:07:29 GMT

You should set up a style tthat meets your comapny needs and automatically scales to the drawing using Annoative features.

Set up a dimension style in the file. USe select Similar to select all of the dimansions and go to the properties dialog. CHange the dimansion style to the one you set up.

Set up a template with a dim style named the same as the problem style but configured to your size requirements.

Insert the probelm file into a new dwg created from the template above and the dims should hold your new size requirements.

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

albionpjl — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:18:55 GMT

Thank you for replying, but I'm afraid that I don't understand a word that you wrote.

We don't use dimension styles, or annotative features, or anything like that. We have no need for them. So I haven't the slightest idea what they are or how one would set one up. I looked annotative text up once but the information (like most of Autodesk's built in help) assumed that you already knew what it is and what all the terms mean.
I just looked at the dimension style box but I have no idea what any of it means and can't see a setting that would control how large they show when reduced to .001 from a differently scaled drawing.

We use C3d almost exactly as we used Release 12 back in the 90s (except for importing shape files and points.

)
I have several templates that set the units (meters), custom scale (1), with the zone set to Great Britain OKOOA and the coordinate system British National Grid (ORD SURV GB) and have various different settings for scaling imported units.

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

Joe-Bouza — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 02:01:34 GMT

I'm working in the blind here so I hope I dont steer your wrong.

Hopefully the dimensions are base on a single style. Type DDIM the dimension definition dialog box will open choose the style in use there are different settings for arrows, text etc. edit these values to be more appropriate for your drawing scale units.

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

cwr-pae — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 20:04:54 GMT

Along the lines of jmayo and joe-bouza replies. If you select a dimension and look at the properties you will see a dimension style named. Type dim or use the dim style tool bar or ribbon find and edit the dim style you found in properties. On the fit tab set the overall scale to 1/100th of the scale shown. This should reduce the dims to look as they did before.

Or xref the consultants drawing and insert at a scale of 1/100.

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

albionpjl — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 10:06:37 GMT

Hi, thanks everyone.

I had a look at that. Took me ages to find the pop up window with the list of styles - I never use the ribbon, but I found it in the end.

I'll try rescaling everything including the text and see what happens.

Xrefing is not an option. The drawing has to work in our GIS and it doesn't accept xrefs (or blocks or Mtext or splines or ellipses or hatching or solids etc etc etc)
It will display most of the blocks etc but will just crash if there's an xref. It doesn't like dims either. I generally just explode or delete anything it won't accept, or if it's really important, draw over the top with a basic polyline.

Re: Rescaling dimensions question

albionpjl — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 11:26:11 GMT

The specific drawing I was working on this time has about 50 styles in it, but that may not always be the case.

Thanks for the help. I now know how to edit the styles next time I encounter this issue.