Scaling architectural dwg. clips (imperial) to plat survey (decimal).

[todd.egeland]

I get hung up on the smallest things.  I am attempting to copyclip my 1/4" architectural drawings (floor plan and elevations) to the survey I just received, which is in "decimal," according to the UNIT command.  When I attempt to draw the building envelop on the survey, some line lengths are in feet and inches (decimal point inches) and some lengths are in very large numbers that mean nothing to me.  I used a .2 scaling factor twice on the architectural drawings and they seem to be the right size, but when I try to measure a wall or roof length, the lengths again are meaningless; they also make no sense when I switch the survey UNITs to "engineering".  Perhaps more confounding is when I try to build a side section of the hillside lot using 1 foot "backbone" lines; when I put 12 into the command lines they are way too large, maybe by a factor of 10.  The command line won't accept 1'0.0 either.  What is the best way to attack these dimension/scaling issues so I have accurate dimension on the survey?  Can AutoCAD automatically convert?  Back to my "smallest" problem: how do I draw 12 inch parallel lines to build a section?  

Thanks in advance!

[maxim_k]

Hi Todd,

At first you need to look at this AKN article:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Pasted...
I believe it will help you to understand what happens when you copy - paste objects between drawings with different units format.

I think the best way for you will be to convert units in one of the drawings you have (depends which units you need - prefer) and then proceed with copy / paste from one drawing to another.
Here you can find additional details about -DWGUNITS command:
https://www.cad-notes.com/convert-autocad-units-using-dwgunits/

>>>>but when I try to measure a wall or roof length, the lengths again are meaningless
How do you measure length? Do you use DIM command to create dimension or you use DIST (or Distance option of MEASUREGEOM command)?
If the first, then you will get length according to the settings in the current dimension style, which may differ from the result you get with DIST command. DIST command always gives you distance in AutoCAD drawing units.