Defining MSLTSCALE, PSLTSCALE and LTSCALE

[seanp.fahey]

All,

I have read multiple forum posts and online articles regarding why we should have these values set to 1 or 0 depending on the bias of the author.  My firm has a couple of engineers who have been doing civil / transportation CAD design for many years and are accustomed to these values being set to 0.

A few years ago our CAD manager (who has left the firm, leaving me as the defacto CAD manager) added these variables to be set to 1 in the ACAD.lisp file.  Since then most of our staff, new and old (except the engineers mentioned above) have gotten use to this and create their base files and sheet files without issue.  However, the engineers mentioned above, are not happy with this and have been writing different lisp routines to make alterations to their line scales and variables so that (in their opinion) their plans look better.  They do this without leaving bread crumbs for others to make appropriate changes so that it prints correctly.

Unfortunately what this has created is another staff member having to make an edit in their drawings for our clients and when they go to print being told that the linework doesn't look right or they find themselves looking at a mess of linework that they don't understand what is happening.

I am of the opinion that these variables should be set to 1 and that should there be a need to make some linetypes easier to read a new linetype should be generated and placed in the acad.lin file.  I feel that if we are to set these variables back to zero, then we would need to require a large percentage of the company (greater than 100 people) to be retrained or failing that have issues during design and plan production.  However I would like to hear opinions from you all as to best practices.

Thank you

[jefflambert9091]

All to 1.  What you see is what you get. In your viewports and model space. If you have to fix a few so be it. Worth the work going forward.  I have seen companies that have their linetype scale set to things like  half of the plotting scale or times 2. Crazy! What you send out works for everyone without having to think of figure anything out.  

[sirjoelsph]

I've always been used to all 3 set to "1".  At the company I'm with currently, they set LTSCALE to 0.75 though.  I found it weird at first, but it actually does help a lot more short line segments to generate the line type.  It did add some complexity when wanting to create some new custom line types, but that was eventually overcome.  Our templates are set up accordingly and no one probably realizes we do it that way anymore, it's just second nature.

[BrianHailey]

I agree with the others, all three set to 1. If they are all set to 0, then you have to manually change the linetype scale as you change the scale a drawing will be plotted at. If you have two different viewports at different scales, the linetypes won't plot the same in both views (the spacing between the dashes will be different as measured on the piece of paper).

[rl_jackson]

I agree with all the above. It must and should be 1. If you feel that the line type is neaeds an adjustment. LTScale is where it happens. Then there is something that can also be object oriented. I do it even with a hidden linetype. If I want one feature to stand out differently than another. 

[pendean]

Some companies like to set LTSCALE to less than 1: that starts getting into personal preferences by the person in charge more than anything else. WE all have to abide by the big kahuna's wishes after all.

Most of the rest of us CAD managers insist and enforce all set to 1 in our standards and everything the users do and give them little to no choice in changing the settings ever.

[jefflambert9091]

I do think that the out of the box linetytpes fall a little short so people (Big Kahuna's) make up for it by using crazy ltscales. We are big in the concept to use everything "Out of the Box" BUT since linetypes carry over with the drawing and don't seem to cause problems, (Until you add text) we have come up with our own linetypes and use none of the original linetypes. Ours are set up  by plotting length so with this variety you don't have to do crazy things with the ltscales and can leave them at 1. IE *D020,Dash (Dash length = 0.20 x scale), A,0.20,-0.20  - We make this at .1 through .10 and then every five up to 100 or 1 inch. Same for  *LD020,Long Dash (Dash length = 0.20 x scale) A,0.20,-0.10, *LDSD020,Long Dash-Short Dash (Dash length = 0.20 x scale), A,0.20,-0.05,0.05,-0.05 and so on. Along with custom linetypes with text for utilities. This way if someone wants to change something its just a linetype on a layer not a setting that can leave people scratching their heads.

[pendean]

DASHED linetype also comes as a DASHED2 (half) and DASHEDX2 (double) very much OOTB, as do all stock linetypes: a fact often missed by some users.

But much like you indicated, it takes only a few moments to create DASHED4 AND DASHEDX4 and others like it in your centrally located ACAD.LIN or ACADISO.LIN files, as long as you train your users to look for and use them.

HTH