Viewport scale to 1"=10'-0"
Accepted solution
What Dean says is true, most civil engineers working in imperial units in the United States use decimal feet, where one unit = one foot.
That said, if you are working in an architectural file that includes the site plan and your drawing units are inches, you can add a scale of 1" = 10'-0" by setting one paper unit equal to 120 model units. (10 feet = 120 inches, so 1" = 10'-0" is 1:120.)
@pendean wrote:
But... Where does the code official at the city/county/state get a 1:120 scale to measure the permit drawings?
And the contractor that needs to build it?
And the landscape / civil contractor?
I could lend them mine. 😉 I have a standard engineering scale that offers 1" = 10'-0", 1" = 20'-0", 1" = 30'-0", 1" = 40'-0", 1" = 50'-0" and 1" = 60'-0". I do not use it often, but those are all standard imperial scales for site drawings.
If your part is 50" long and you want a full-size plot (1:1), you will need a plotter that can plot to a page size greater than 50". Do you have one (or, through a third party, such as a print shop, have access to one)?
Standard sheet sizes on our large-format plotter max out at 36"x48", but it is fed by a roll, so we can define a custom page size that is longer, when needed. There is a maximum length (the exact number escapes me at the moment), but I know it is well over 50". (You would most likely need to allow for at least an extra inch, as most plotters will not plot right to the edge of the paper.)
Are you planning to use the scanned image as part of your final deliverable? If so, yes, you can bring the image in and scale it up so that it is twice its native size (assuming that the original drawing and the scanned image remain at a true 1/8" = 1'-0".
Typically, in AutoCAD, things are drawn in Model Space in "real world" dimensions. So a door opening that is 3'-0" wide in real life is drawn 3'-0" wide. The final output is then set up on one or more Layouts, where Paper Space is treated as the full size "paper", and scaled viewports are added to view the contents of Model Space at a particular scale. So if your final deliverable is a presentation board that is 42" long and 30" high, a rectangle for the trim line would be drawn that is 42" x 30" and the viewports and other graphics arranged inside. You can still do this with your image; you will just need to enlarge it to full size in Model Space.
If I were doing this, I would probably scale the image full size, and draw over it with AutoCAD elements, to get better graphic quality out of it for the final deliverable. If the 1/8" = 1'-0" plan drawing has sufficient dimensions on in, I might skip scanning the image and just re-draft the plan in AutoCAD.