Scale Help

Hi,

Although I've technically "taken" an autocad course at my uni., it was pretty terrible instruction so I consider myself an absolute beginner.

I have a site that is about 300 feet by 215 feet. In model space, everything is 1 to 1, as in the site really is 300 feet long in model space. I have downloaded an autocad plug-in called Land F/X. I need to give it a scale to work with so that the hatching and plants that it offers can be scaled correctly. In their set the scale video (I am not allowed to post it by this forum's rules) it shows them going into paper space, obtaining 1" = 20' and then setting the scale as such.

I have no idea where they got 1" = 20' from in paper space. I understand that if I have an 10" piece of paper and I want to draw a 300' site on it, I'd calculate 300 * 12 = 3600 inches. Then 3600/10 = 1" = 360" or 1" = 30'. That's just so that it'll FIT on my paper. But how do I figure out the scale if I don't want the site to fill the page? I just want it to occupy a corner of it and when I mess around with it in paper space, I get this number at the bottom that says 0.00258. I found a ratio chart on the internet and it says that 1" = 50' is equivalent to something like 0.28, IOW, no zeroes before the 2. Why is my number so small then? And what does 0.00258 mean anyway? I don't know if that number is feet or inches or what it is equivalent to.

Very confused and pretty frustrated. Help!

[Oh, and I set up a viewport in Layout Mode too that takes up the whole page and now I'm trying to figure out scale in paper space. I don't know if I need to say that as that should be obvious I guess]

There are several ways to do this. Here are a few.

Option 1

Start by doing the math as you have done to get a rough estimate...

Start with your desired paper size, say 34"x22".

So you want to fit 300 ft onto 34 inches.

300 ft = 3600 inches

3600 / 34 = ±105.

So your 300 ft site would fit on a 34" sheet at 1"=100'

But we did not include the borders, title block, etc., so it probably will not actually fit since your viewport itself will not be 34" - but it's a start.

Option 2

Draw a rectangle the exact size of your paper, in Model Space.

Scale it up (trial and error, if you don't want to do the math)

Let's say you draw a 34"x22" rectangle and then scale it X 100.

This represents the edge of paper - you can move the rectangle around to see how it will cover the area you need to show.

If it's too large or too small, undo the scale and repeat.

Option 3

Go into your layout, create a best guess paper size, then create a viewport.

Now rather than select a scale from the list, go into model space of the viewport and run the Zoom command, Center option, and pick a point roughly in the center of the area you want to show. Then enter 1/100XP (where 100 is the scale factor). Your model will zoom to this scale and you can determine whether it fits.

This is a tricky method, because if you do zoom (or set the scale) using the drop down, the model is likely to fall outside the limits of the viewport and you will see nothing. If you guess really bad at the paper and viewport size, the same thing can happen...

what does 0.00258 mean anyway?

It's the ratio of PS units to MS units.

0.002 for example would be 1"=500'

Take the inverse of 0.002 and you get 500.

So take the inverse of 0.00258 and you get 1"= ±387.6'