Units Command Glitch?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Long time AutoCAD user, first time poster.

I'm using AutoCAD 2017 LT, and I'm trying to create a drawing with metric units. However, when I use the UNITS command, and change from mm to meters, the reading for the distance command remains the same. The -dwgunits doesn't appear to change anything either since, when I set my units to "6" (meters), it remains the same.

Any ideas what may be going on or how to fix this?

Thanks!

Micah

[maxim_k]

Welcome to Autodesk Forums!

Hi Micah,

-DWGUNITS should help you. It is little beat glitchy in AutoCAD for Mac as it doesn't show all possible choices for each question at the command window when it runs. But I just tried it and was able to convert drawing created in millimetres to drawing in meters and all objects in the drawing was scaled down 1000 times after I run this command.

Command: -DWGUNITS
Drawing units:
1. Inches
2. Feet
3. Millimeters
4. Centimeters
5. Decimeters
6. Meters
Unit for length <3>: 1
Drawing unit display formats:
1. Scientific
2. Decimal
3. Engineering
4. Architectural
5. Fractional
Linear display format <4>:
Architectural linear display precision formats:
0. 1″
1. 1/2″
2. 1/4″
3. 1/8″
4. 1/16″
5. 1/32″
6. 1/64″
7. 1/128″
8. 1/256″
Linear display precision <4>:
Scale objects from other drawings upon insert? [Yes/No] <Yes>:
Match INSUNITS to drawing units? [Yes/No] <Yes>:
** WARNING: you have changed the unit for this drawing database.  **
** All new objects will be drawn according to the new unit, but   **
** existing objects will not change size unless you specifically  **
** ask to have automatic scaling occur.                           **
Scale objects in current drawing to reflect change in units? [Yes/No] <Yes>:
Include objects in Paper Space? [Yes/No] <Yes>:

you should answer "Yes" to the question highlighted in red in the command line output above, than everything will be scaled to meters. For example if the drawing was in millimeters - everything will be scaled down 1000 times.

Maxim

[Anonymous]

Hi Maxim,

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. However, I have tried the -dwgunits command on several occasions in an attempt to fix this drawing. The problem isn't the scale of the current drawing. I know this because I've set up a viewport in paper space, scaled the drawing to 1/96xp (1/8"=1'-0"), and the objects display scaled as they should. (I've checked it with other, successful imperial drawings I've done. For example, if I knew I needed a 12 meter line, I drew a 39.3701 foot line in my imperial drawing, scaled the viewport to 1/8", and it would display the same way as my other drawing where I've set the  -dwgunits to "6".

Actually, in the drawing that's scaled successfully, the distance command isn't even giving me millimeters; its giving me decimal inches. To work around this, I figured I'd try to create a new acadltiso drawing, set the units to meters, set the -dwgunits to 6, and see if that worked. However, in the iso drawing, when I draw a line of say, 10 units, the program thinks I'm drawing 10mm. The only way I know it's 10mm rather than 10m is through a viewport. When I scale the drawing to 1/8", the 10mm line I've drawn is incredibly small.

Any idea what may be happening?

Thanks again,

Micah

[maxim_k · Accepted solution]

>>>>when I draw a line of say, 10 units, the program thinks I'm drawing 10mm

AutoCAD doesn't "know" anything about millimeters or meters, it "knows" only about drawing units and can show this units in different formats (decimal, architectural, scientific, etc).

-DWGUNITS only helps to automate the process of switching between different types of units - metric and imperial (change units system) or between meters and millimeters (inside the same units system).

So if you are using meters in model space (as you consider that 1 unit equals 1 meter in the drawing) and you want to use the same scale factor for viewports as it was when you consider 1 unit=1 mm, you need to use paper size in meters in the layout.

For example: If you had paper 210x297 units when you were using millimeters, than when you use meters, the paper size should be 0.21x0.297 units when you are using meters.

So the size of the paper will be smaller than when you use millimeters, as the result the size of viewports you can create in a smaller paper size will be also smaller and with the same scale factor of the viewport the objects inside viewport will look the same in all cases RELATIVE TO THE SIZE OF VIEWPORT BOUNDARY.

Maxim

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Maxim! It totally makes sense that, "AutoCAD doesn't 'know' anything about millimeters or meters, it 'knows' only about drawing units and can show this units in different formats (decimal, architectural, scientific, etc)."

All I really needed to do this whole time was to adjust the plot scale in paper space. (Jeff M has a good screenshot this.)

Best,

Micah

[maxim_k]

Exactly - if you don't change paper size and as the result the size of viewports, you need to change the scale of viewports.

Maxim