Custom unit format in DIMSTY?

[RIPBillyMays]

I am using AutoCAD Mechanical 2024. I was wondering if it's possible to create a custom unit format in the Dimension Style Manager. Or if not, is there another way to achieve what I am trying to do.

What I want is a mix of Architectural and Fractional primary units. When the dimension is less than 2'-0", I want it to use fractional formatting. 23 15/16" for example, with a " mark as a suffix. When the dimension is 2'-0" or more, I want it to be in Architectural formatting.

Management has requested this at times due to guys in the shop misreading 1'-9" as 19" at times. In years past, I would go through and manually select all the dimensions I wanted to be Fractional and change the property/add the " suffix. More recently I've explained to my boss the absolute time-suck that can be, and I don't do that anymore.

Happy to hear any and all suggestions. Thanks for all the help in advance.

[Kent1Cooper]

You could presumably define two Dimension Styles, and build custom Dimension commands that check on the measured dimension after drawing one, and depending on that result, possibly change the Dimension Style.  But then if you Stretch things, it would not change the Style if something got Stretched across that threshold in either direction.  A Reactor, maybe?

Or a routine could be defined, which you would run before issuing drawings, to just find all Dimensions for you and assign Styles to them depending on their measured dimensions.  Doing it en masse like that has the drawback that some will get their text kicked outboard of their extension lines when it was inside before, or vice versa, so you should check for such effects.  But it could be done with one command, instead of needing to make custom definitions separately of DIMLINEAR, DIMROTATED, DIMALIGNED, etc.

[dany_rochefort · Accepted solution]

@RIPBillyMays  You could easily use alternate units display both types of units at all times...  

[pendean]

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@RIPBillyMays wrote:

What I want is a mix of Architectural and Fractional primary units. When the dimension is less than 2'-0", I want it to use fractional formatting. 23 15/16" for example, with a " mark as a suffix. When the dimension is 2'-0" or more, I want it to be in Architectural formatting.

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AutoCAD's built-in cutoff is 1'-0", which if you think about it, makes more sense than a 2'-0" cutoff: do you really want to reinvent the wheel, aka go completely custom?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2024/ENU/index.html?guid=GUID-2D1177AB-3130-4522-A631-AA28493529D...

MECH have have more tools and options in those AM dim tools, but this is not the forum for that specialized version.

[RIPBillyMays]

I would rather not mess with it at all haha. I like it the way it's set up. Sometimes the shop managers come up by us and complain about it because their guys can't tell 1'-2" from 12". But if the product also has a 70' span I'm not going to give them that in 840" ya know? I picked my brain at it and wanted to see if people had any nifty ideas, solutions. See if what I had in mind was easy, or if there was an easier way.

Someone replied suggesting to use the alternate units option in DIMSTY, which is probably the easiest solution to this issue I would say.

[RIPBillyMays]

You win, this is definitely easier than what I had in mind. Thanks for the suggestion, appreciate it.