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Setting the scale and area of the drawing area

9 REPLIES 9
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Message 1 of 10
paulotuatail
8492 Views, 9 Replies

Setting the scale and area of the drawing area

I want to set up a drawing area for a room. Let's say it is 6 meters by 8 meters and a grid size of 1/10 meter (there are 5 smaller squares to a larger square so that would be 1/2 meter size)

 

I have been told to go to Tools > Toolbars > Autocad > Zoom

I get a set of 9 mini tools in a movable tool tray. I was hoping for a status bar button where you could set the scale Meters/Imperial and size.

 

9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10

Hi,

 

>> I was hoping for a status bar button where you could set the scale Meters/Imperial

Command _UNITS and you get a dialog for setting your units for the current drawing.

In case you are working with vertical products together you should use command _-DWGUNITS (including the dash), it's a "deeper" definition of units for the drawing and contains some other features too.

 

>> I want to set up a drawing area for a room

Basically a command called _LIMITS exits to define drawing limits + warning (using on/off in the command) if your try to draw anything outside that limits.

But you should know that this is something very old like a relic from very early releases of AutoCAD and just of performance reasons for zooming ... but these performance reasons are not valid any more as zoom is now working differently compared to that old releases of AutoCAD.

So my suggestion: let that be, it is not necessary to defined a drawing area any more.

 

In contrary: if you use command _LIMITS and set it ON many users receiving your drawing may be surprised about warnings like that (and are not able to set points for an object then:

 

20170813_114750.png

 

- alfred -

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
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(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 3 of 10

If set to inches as it has to be for architectural, the displayed drawing area is 3 feet x 1 1/2 feet which not very big for drawing a room. When set to feet it is 37 feet x 16 feet. Much to large. if the visible grid could be adjusted it would be better.

Message 4 of 10
beyoungjr
in reply to: paulotuatail

Hi, Go into the "Drafting Settings" dialog by right-clicking the grid button (Gridmode) on the bottom of the screen beside the "Model" button, and select grid settings.  You will be able to adjust the grid per your preferences and the snap as well, although you will likely find that the snap is not necessary for your needs.  These are simply drawing aids and will not have any impact on your prints later.

 


Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army

Message 5 of 10
paulotuatail
in reply to: beyoungjr

No this does not work. Setting X and Y grid spacing from 1/2" to 1" makes the grid on the drawing area twice as big.  the X axis is still 1.5 feet. When I set it to 1 inch grid spacing I need the viewed grid to be the same size. This would make the X axis double to 3 feet. Setting it to 6 inches should set the X axis to 18 feet.

 

Making the grid  bigger as a result of changing the grid spacing. defeats the whole idea. of changing the scale. 

Message 6 of 10
beyoungjr
in reply to: paulotuatail

It sounds like you are worrying about drawing in scale?

In AutoCAD we draw EVERYTHING at full scale.  You achieve scaled prints the old way by using the print dialog box to print your Model Space content.

You achieve scaled layout in a more modern fashion by using the Layout tabs with either Viewports or Base Views.

 

If you need a grid setup for architectural design make sure you are using architectural units.  Then adjust your grid spacing's to 1' or 5' or whatever you wish.

 

Really sounds like you are trying to draw in scale.

 

Blaine

 


Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army

Message 7 of 10
beyoungjr
in reply to: beyoungjr

Oh yeah... and turn off "display grid beyond limits" and "adaptive grid".  Then set your drawing limits (Limits command) to lower left corner 0,0 and upper right crner as you need with the apostrophe as your ft. mark.

 


Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army

Message 8 of 10
paulotuatail
in reply to: beyoungjr

This is confusing. You say
It sounds like you are worrying about drawing in scale AND
In AutoCAD we draw EVERYTHING at full scale

 

if drawing to scale means an inch is an inch then that is to scale.

If one of the small squares is 2 inches instead of the default half an inch then I don't see the problem.

 

When set to the default 1/2 inch there are 39 squares acroos the X axis. This makes it 19.5 inches. Why cant I give the value of the square 2 inches. This would make it 78 inches.

 

When set to 2 inches I only have 9 and a half squares. What am I not seing.

 

In Adobe photoshop You can zoom in and out.In order to draw a room and see a room I would need a 50 foot by 50 foot monitor. I want to draw a room 14 feet by 12 feet and see the full room on my desktop PC. a drawing area of 8 inches by 18 inches dosn't fit the bill.

 

I have googled "display grid beyond limits" and "adaptive grid" without success. Why can't I see the whole picture. I can in photoshop.

Message 9 of 10
beyoungjr
in reply to: paulotuatail

Hi,

Try this...

Start a new drawing using the acad.dwt template.

Set your Units to Architectural with whatever precision you wish.

Set your Limits to 0,0 in lower left, 50',30' in upper right.

Grid & Snap Settings as shown in image attached.

Perform a Zoom->All

 

 

I rarely use snap but I typically make sure it is set to something that makes sense in case I wish to flip it on.

 

Does the screen you see make sense?

Do you see a clear way to achieve whatever you are looking for?

*Sorry if I still don't understand what you are wanting.

 

Cheers

 


Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army

Message 10 of 10
gotphish001
in reply to: paulotuatail

I don't really understand what the problem is. There's pretty much zero reason to use the grid or grid snaps at all. There's pretty much zero reason to use drawing limits. If a wall is 50 meters long just draw the wall 50 meters. You can zoom out so it looks like you are looking at the wall from outer space or zoom in so the wall looks like you are an ant sitting on it. It doesn't matter how far in or out you are zoomed if you measure that wall it will still be 50 meters. Always draw everything real size in model space and then you scale it down in paperspace to get it to fit on whatever size paper you want to print it on. It seems to me you are trying too hard to do something that doesn't need to be done anyway. 



Nick DiPietro
Cad Manager/Monkey

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