Total beginner. Scale and Dimensioning problem.

[ezzetabi]

I am going to buy an house for my family. I have the permission of using a computer of the firm where I work with installed Autocad 2006 after the work hour. So I started drawing on the possible division of the flat in rooms with Autocad. Reading on the internet and asking to some friend I am doing decently, but I have a problem. When I started drawing I assumed I was drawing in meters and so I drawed with 1 meter = 1 drawing unit and every went fine until I started putting the measurement. I think autocad believes I am drawing in millimeters or such since the arrows and the fonts are huge! I checked Format -> Units and set metres but it does not solve. A little later I had the same problem making dashed lines, more or less a single 'bash' is 30 cm! Too huge to marking the stairs... How can I `tell' autocad how to scale everything considering the total possible size of the drawing? Thanks in avance.

[Steamineagle]

Welcome ezzetabi to this forum!

You appear to have some experience in using AutoCAD, but I don't know for sure how much, so I'm going to have to ask you to clarify some very basic settings before I and others can help you better answer your problem.

I assume you are drawing everything in model space in the model tab?
If your units are set to millimeters you must draw your entities in a manner that matches the unit set up.
Example:- 900mm is input as 900 units and not 0.9 units.
If the units were set in meters, your 900mm would be input as 0.9 units.
Always draw everything full size to match your units.
Also check and see if your LTSCALE is set to 1.
It may be that your current & active dimension style is away over sized and that you will need to adjust the sizes of the arrows, extension lines and text.
You may need also to adjust the scale feature in the modify section of the dimensions tab.

Make up a dimension style that suits your drawing.

When you go to print your drawing to a chosen scale, it is preferable that you move to a layout tab and create a viewport, having first chosen a printer/plotter and then a paper size.
It is inside this viewport that your drawing is 'scaled'.
If you treat each viewport as if it were a single camera and by zooming in & out or panning, you set the drawing up as you would wish to see it on a piece of paper.
When you are in MODEL tab, you only have access to model space.
When you are in a LAYOUT tab, you have access to both model & paper space.

There are lots of 'threads' and 'posts' in this forum on this subject.
Feel free to look around.
If I have missed the point, write in again.

We're all ears!

Best of luck with your new house & the family!

regards

Stephen

[dbroada]

UNITS doesn't set m or mm (certainly not here anyway), it sets the format of the text. I use decimal so 1 unit could be 1", 1mm, 1m, etc.

1 unit = 1m has be chosen which is perfectly acceptable.

Open the dimension style and play with figures in there. It is possible that they are still set to imperial sizes anyway. Start with arrow size and text height and then look at the other options.

[Steamineagle]

By typing in UNITS you get a window popping up titled Drawing Units.
In it you will see areas titled Length, Angle & Insertion Scale.
In the Length portion you have a choice of Architectural, Decimal, Engineering, Fractional & Scientific.
If you are working in metric you would choose Decimal.

In the Insertion Scale portion you have the choice of Unitless, Inches, Feet, Miles, Millimeters, Centimeters, Meters, Kilometers and a whole hoast of other units of measurements.

So if you use metric, you have a choice of 4 to 5 units of measurement.
If you are in the business of drawing up buildings as in Architecture within the UK or Europe (& other places no doubt), in my experience it is the Millimeter unit of measurement.
However, if you are a surveyor measuring up sites and larger areas, in my experience, surveyors tend to use the Meter unit of measurement.
If we get any of their drawings we just multiply/scale their drawing entities up by 1000.


So when you draw you need to input to match your units setting.

Does it not get confusing otherwise?

Stephen

[dbroada]

True. We still use UNITLESS as our default so I forgot about the ability to adjust that.