,dxf files basically unusable, what can I do?

[Anonymous]

Hi, thank you for taking the time to have a look at my issue. I have been receiving files from designers and now from third party apps, that come in .dxf format. These files look visually fine, but if I try to draw a line, or take a dimension, or in any way engage the cursor to snap somewhere, it dances wildy as if my minimum recognized length were 4 or 5 feet. If I rescale it to x20, it dimensions more normally, but is of course now unusably huge.

I just used a software offering that allowed me to cut time and focus with As-built documentation, and I want to use the convienient .dxf export file as source material for the drawing. 

What I really need is to be able to take just linework and insert it into a template drawing so that my titleblocks and sheets will be there.

Any help is deeply appreciated.

Thanks

Gary

[pendean]

So the scale is wrong, how is correcting the scale suddenly make the files unusable? Explain please. And show us one or more of these DXF files please.

What is your ACA version?
WIndows version?
What are your PC specs are that hobbled by a properly scaled file?
Are you trying to keep everything in DXF format? Always a bad idea, AutoCAD/ARCH is a DWG application.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response.

So first, for the requested explanation, I opened the .dxf file and saved it as a .dwg, then tried to string a dimension. The cursor will not snap to any objects, but instead jumps as it does if you zoom in very very close and try to measure a distance that is too small. The similarities in cursor behaviour led me to try to rescale the drawing x20. I did so, and the result was that I could now snap to objects and dimension to my heart's content. Issue is, of course, the plan is now wildly out of scale.

I have a new workstation on the way, and that may well be the source of my problem. I have been working for years on an HP Pavilion running windows 8. so 1.3ghz AMD and Radeon Graphics card could be my problem.

AutoCAD Architecture 2014 is the particular software I'm using. Attached you'll find the file

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

So I found a solution that is simple enough. I copied all the objects into a template drawing and had to resize it x12 larger to make the dimensions fit the objects. So there was definitely some sort of scale issue.

Thank for the help

[David_W_Koch]

The authoring software most likely uses a foot as the base unit in imperial drawings, and when you opened the file in AutoCAD, it read the values as inches.  I cannot remember the last time I used a DXF file; and even then it was probably created from AutoCAD.  Not sure why the DXF file would not have units information making it clear that the base unit was a foot, and not an inch.  Glad you got it sorted out, and thanks for posting back with your resolution.