Scaling from Visio to AutoCAD

[JPomeroy]

I often get drawings made in Visio, 2D, top-down layouts of rooms and their contents.  I can save, in Visio, the documents as .dwg files, but when I open them in CAD, they are way out of scale.  The units are set to decimal, when I open them in CAD, and I am having trouble figuring out how to scale the drawing to make the units real (I would prefer to set the units to "Architectural."  I don't know if this is a simple math problem that I am flubbing, or if this is just the trouble converting from .vsdx to .dwg.

Does anyone have any experience with this?  I am ignoring the issue of layers being all jacked up, which I know will just require some elbow (wrist?) grease to correct.

I have attached the file, saved from .vsdx to .dwg (with a 1' line added to see the scale...)  The measurements in the drawing are objects in Visio, and were not added in CAD.  Thanks in advance. -Joe

[dgorsman · Accepted solution]

*shudder* Visio... ugh....

When you don't know an exact scale factor, but *do* know an exact final length, use SCALE command with the Reference option.  It will prompt first for an original length, which you can provide by picking two points of a known final distance.  Then it will prompt for a final distance, which you can just provide the proper value.

Check out the UNITS dialog to set how you want units to be displayed.  Changing this does NOT change the values in the drawing e.g. 10 units under decimal is still 10 units under Architectural.

[JPomeroy]

Thank you!  I didn't know how to use the "Reference" function of "scale!"  This is a lifesaver.  You are a gentleman and a scholar, no matter what anyone says.