Metric Drawing Units

[bretwieseler]

I want 1 unit = 1 cm.  I'm using an iso template.  When I draw 1 unit, it's 1mm, not 1 cm.  How can I go about resolving this?

Thanks.

[maxim_k]

How do you know that it is 1 mm?
It is up to you to decide how long is one AutoCAD unit: if you decided it is 1 cm, than it is 1 cm.

Maxim

[bretwieseler]

"How do you know that it is 1 mm?"

I draw 1 unit in paper space, and it's clear that the units are mm.

I've set -dwgunits to cm, but it still draws in mm.

[maxim_k · Accepted solution]

-dwgunits is for Model space, not for paper space.
Plus, as I wrote before, AutoCAD is not aware of the different measurement units, it knows only about abstract drawing unit.

Maxim

[dgorsman]

Expanding on what maxim wrote, layouts (paper space) are assumed to be millimeters for metric paper and inches for imperial paper.  You *can* get away with other units (e.g. meters) but then you have to start taking into account different scale factors for things like viewport scales and text heights.  We've received a number of civil drawings like this and they are a royal PITA to work with.  Treat a layout as being "paper units" and everything else follows smoothly.

Under ideal circumstances a layout can be plotted on its set paper size (A1, letter, etc.) at a scale of 1:1 with everything fitting.