Dimensioning the circumferance of a circle, and arc segments within circle

[maddyj]

PLease Help! I am trying to dimension a circle (to be 48" circumference), every dimension I have tried will not do this, and just gives me the angle. Also I am trying to get an exact measurement on one segment of this circle (5/16", 3/16") and I also cannot do so with the dimension tool. Any advice I will be forever grateful !!!! maddy ! See ATTACHED IMAGE !

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

If you have actual Arc segments, and not a continuous circle, you can use the DIMARC command to add a dimension giving the length of the arc.  DIMARC will not, however, work on a full circle, and I am not aware of an out-of-the-box way to dimension the circumference of a full circle.

If you have AutoCAD Architecture or AutoCAD MEP (and not just plain AutoCAD), you can create a Property Set that applies to circles and add a property that referenced the Circumference automatic property source.  You could then create a Schedule Tag to display that value in the drawing, for a tagged circle.  If you really need the dimension line as well, you could add that manually, and use the tag to display the value.

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi @maddyj,

It looks like @David_W_Koch provided a detailed answer to your question. Did it help you with your circle dimensioning problem?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[gotphish001]

Since you can't put the circumference in without a work  around, you could always dim the arc segment and just put a leader note that gives the total circumference. I don't think you'd want a dim all the way around the circle anyway. I leader would be cleaner. Not telling you how you should do it but that's what I would do.

You probably already know but it tells you the circumference in the properties too.

Edit:  Here you go. Here is a lisp to do it. The link is in the comments on the video. It just takes you to the page and then you have to search for the lisp. Dimcurve. It came right up as the only search result.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCyWtdDkG4Q

[gotphish001]

That lisp works great, but I want to edit it to take the << out of the dimension style. I think I can figure it out, but what I can't figure out is how to tell what language it is written in. When I open the lips with notepad++ it's just jumbled text. I tried a few languages and it still is jumbled.

[David_W_Koch]

@gotphish001:  VLX files are compiled Visual LISP routines (which can also include support files, like DCL files for dialog boxes).  You would need the source files to make edits to it.