Annotative objects and viewports of different scales

[Anonymous]

I have annotative objects in one of my drawings. Each object can only be "assigned" one scale. In my case, the scale I am using is 1" = 30'. My main viewport is also set to 1" = 30' and the annotative objects show up the right size when viewed on a layout. However, there are times when we need to do callouts and dimensions, and the spacing is too small to accommodate them. In these instances, we do a blowup by creating another viewport on the same sheet, set to 1" = 10' or 1" = 20', of a small section of the drawing. However, the size of the annotative object always shows up bigger in that blowup viewport and is not uniform with the same annotative objects in the main 1" = 30' viewport.

Is there a way to set up the drawing such that annotative objects show up the same size in paper space despite being in two or more viewports of different scales?

[steve216586 · Accepted solution]

Annotative objects can be many different scales. You can select the button to have these scales created automatically or you can assign more scales to the objects in PROPERTIES. Just make sure the button to show only the current viewport scale is checked.

[Anonymous]

For the area that you want to be a blow-up (1"=10'), you need to set your annotative scale to 1"-10' in model space and dimension it like you normally would. Now when you go into paper space, make your new viewport and set the scale to 1"=10'. The trick now is to make sure that the icon for "show annotative objects" (which is the 3 point compass thingy to the left of the scale) is gray and set to "at current scale". This way you will only see the annotative objects at that scale in that viewport. If you have that icon blue, it will say "show annotative objects - always" and it will always show all scales in every viewport. You don't want that in your case.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much! I did not realize that a single block could have different scales assigned to it if was in different viewports.

The problem I was having is that when the block was selected, there would be shadows of sorts of the block at all the other scales assigned to it. When I had created the drawing in model space, I had deleted all of the other scales to avoid seeing those shadows when I was working. Then, when I created a viewport of another scale, there was no 1" = 10' or 1" = 20' assigned to the block so it scaled the 1"= 30' block size which is why it looked bigger. (I just learned that setting SELECTIONANNODISPLAY to 0 eliminates the problem I was having with the "shadows" showing up, while still keeping all of the scales.)