Leaders within scaled blocks not behaving

[Anonymous]

I know, no need to reply about paper space, annotative dimensions, been there done it, great features when starting ANEW, but the reality is when you have years of drawings and you simply want to copy and paste or insert a generic detail that has been drawn at different scales, meaning the dimension styles and text heights are drawn at whatever scale the detail was originally drawn at. Then insert that block AND scale it to whatever scale you are currently drawing at without exploding it, I have had zero problems in the past. I am currently using release 2021 and now it actually changes a leader size within the block, how is this possible ?  Linear dimensions behave like they should as shown in the attached image.

Is there a setting possibly to stop it from doing this ??

Also on a side question, is there anyway to to get back the "Dim" "L" option, where it will draw a non associative leader without turning off the "dimasocc" variable thus making all dimensions exploded ?

Thanks for reading.

[dbroad]

Images are not worth 1000 words. Post the drawing.  Doesn't really look like an ACA issue though.

[Anonymous]

here ya go, I also included an inserted block using the 'arrow' dim style as a linear dimension, low and behold, it behaves correctly. Its the leaders that seem to be an issue.

Thanks for responding

[David_W_Koch]

You have different settings for the ARROW dimension style in the block-1.dwg and the model space drawing with blocks.dwg.  The arrow size is 6" in the block-1.dwg file, and 9" in the model space drawing with blocks.dwg.  The leaders behave as I would expect; my question is why the linear dimensions are holding the 6" size, since the current drawing Dimension Style should govern.  Changing the ARROW dimension style to have a 6" arrow size gets them all the same.

Odd, to say the least.  I checked out your files in AutoCAD Architecture 2020, so if this is a change from previous behavior, it dates back to at least the 2020 release.

[dbroad]

You have a number of issues with your drawing that lead me to believe you are a relatively new user or haven't been formally trained in how to use AutoCAD.  I will discuss best practices first:

1.  Use mleaders rather than qleaders/leaders.  This generally works better.  They slightly buggy when being stretched but otherwise they are far superior to qleaders.

2.  Use fewer dimension styles and keep them consistently defined between drawings.  In the main drawing, for example, you have defined the arrowhead size at 9" but in the block-1 drawing, it is 6".  Elements controlled by styles are controlled by styles in the host drawing and those styles don't change when another drawing with the same style names are inserted.

3. With CAD, always, always, always specify the paper sizes of dimension elements.  Either use annotative scaling or use the dimscale setting to scale dimension elements to model size. Never specify sizes of dimension elements in model size.  

4. Always use 0 height sizes for text styles.  Using any other height will introduce confusion, especially when those text styles are used in dimension styles.

5. Avoid pasteasblock, especially when pasting a block.  It creates anonymous block names which are meaningless. You are labelling blocks  in the host drawing as "block" but in reality, they each have a different block name and different contents even though they look the same.

6. Avoid block names that are meaningless.

Now to your questions.

1. Arrowhead size: a. THIS ARROW HEAD IS SUPPOSED TO BE 12". b. THIS ARROW HEAD IS DRAWN AT 6" IN THE THE DRAWING IT WAS CREATED IN IT IS NOW CHANGED WITHIN THE BLOCK.
   1. The arrow size specified in ARROW dimstyle in block-1 is 6". The ARROW dimstyle in the host drawing defines the arrow size as 9". Style based elements are redrawn when being inserted to conform to the current style. That is why you should always use a template with basic style information. 2 x 9" = 18".
2. Dim style: NOTE: THE LINEAR DIMENSIONS BEHAVE CORRECTLY (When comparing the size of text in a block scaled 2 and dimensions in model space.
   1. I don't understand how the two dimension text sizes aren't different sizes. The one in the block inserted with a scale factor of 2 should be twice as big.  There are problems though. Tick dimstyle defines the text height as 12", but it is 15" in the dimension object because the text style has a fixed height size of 15", which overrules the dimstyle setting.  

In short, the drawing is completely botched.  To solve, start again with paper space sized dimension styles with either annotative or fixed sized scaling.  Avoid using text heights with fixed text sizes but if used, never use them in dimension styles.  Stop using pasteasblock.  Don't scale blocks that should be the same size differently in  a single model space.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah relatively a new user, only a prolific user from 90 or 91 starting with release 10, but your right I am new to release 2021. Autocad didn't dare change the contents of an unexploded block (as it shouldn't) EXCEPT if you were missing a font in 2009, by the way.

A leader was a type of dimension controlled by the dimension settings in the past, now it is semi-controlled by the dimension settings, you still have to have an 'arrow' dimension setup to get the leader arrow size (as far as I can tell) but then it goes haywire within an unexploded block , notice the linear dimensions retained themselves regardless of the block scale because they behave as they should.

All I was asking if there was some system variable, maybe a undocumented one, that would treat a leader as it has always done in the past. I can add that to my knowledge base.

And since you are very knowledgeable about Autocad, I also asked if there is a way to get back the 'dim' "l" command that will draw an exploded leader. Currently I wrote a small routine, that will explode all leaders in a selection after I am done with a new set of details. By the way I do all details in separate files, I do not copy and past blocks from other jobs, always insert, so I can quickly wblock a detail to send off to someone retaining the name. The sample drawing I gave you was done before I made the individual blocks, its irrelevant, its still a block.

Thanks for reading.

[dbroad]

As I said, pare down your dimstyles, delete the fixed text heights from styles, and set all dimension variables to plot size, not model size.  Use dimscale (in the dimstyles) to modify for a specific scale.  I prefer using annotative scaling though. That way I can use the same dimstyle regardless of model scale.

Start using mleader (built into the ribbon) rather than dim "l".  If you must use leaders, use either the qleader or leader command.  Mleaders are far superior to leaders and have their own set of controls. The dim mode is gone.

Use insert rather than pasteasblock and don't use separate dim settings in each drawing/block.  To assemble a set of details, I prefer using xattach versus insert. Then I make all editing changes in the xref and reload.

The problem wasn't in your leaders, it was in the variation in blocks, variation in dimstyles, etc.

I checked your drawings in 2017 so not a lot has changed since AutoCAD 2012.

[dbroad]

A followup.  When you cut and paste objects from another drawing, which has different dimension settings from the one being pasted into, I imagine that when paste-as-block is invoked (CTRL+SHFT+V),  style based elements are updated to the style of the host drawing before being converted into a block.  So a 6" leader would be converted to a 9" leader before being wrapped in the block definition.  After scaling, it turns into an 18" arrowhead.

[R_Tweed]

Check your dwg template dim settings for your arrow style.  If I recall, dimension overides carry over and remain unchanged within a block. I could be wrong about that though. However, if you have a style set in a new clean dwg "arrow" with a tick size of 9" and you insert a block with the same style without overrides. It will take on the settings of the new dwg. I dropped your blocks into my blank dwg and everything worked fine as I do not have any styles that match yours.

I was thinking about the leader question and the best I can think of is to set your options in qleader to an annotation type of none and then follow with mtext or dtext to add your text through a routine. Another way would be to use qleader and then use qldetachset last in another routine.

I use mleaders myself for keynotes and text with leaders and would recommend using that moving forward. It's a pretty nice setup once you get familiar.

Unfortunately I do not have an answer for the dim L as that format was removed/replaced sometime ago.  To access that command you needed to be in the dim: prompt and then you would invoke the "l"eader command.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the insights all. I solved the issue doing some programming by changing up the insert command, checking if the block is scaled, then creating a new arrow dimstyle within the block based on comparing the current arrow dimstyle and the insert scale so I don't have to explode the leaders before inserting.

I dont particularly like the new insert fly out panel anyhow, been using "-I" so I can just type in a block name for common blocks .