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Possibly the strangest Dim Scale problem I've seen


MaxwellEdison

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Alright...here's the skinny.

 

I've been working on a rather large file lately (~50MB). And have been experiencing some crashes and general poor system performance, which I pretty much expected. However I did not expect the little snag I just ran into.

 

I'm in the final stages of completing some revisions from the structural engineer, and I was adding some details. I dimension in paperspace, and have my dimstyle set for 48 by default. I was dimensioning an object through a viewport. however this one was at 24 scale. I put down my dimension, went in to it's properties and changed the Dim scale to 24, or so I thought...it actually changed to 1152.00000026. Needless to say I was a little confused, and so I tried setting it back to 1 and starting over. After that attempt I was left with this:

 

FailedDimension.jpg

 

A negative dimension scale...well I immediately ran an audit. 383300 objects audited, 389 blocks audited, 0 errors detected, 0 errors fixed. Has anyone ever had a dimension behave in this way before?

My personal feeling is that the file is haunted...I think the template was originally used to draw an Indian burial ground...

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no answer but 48 * 24 = 1152. Not sure where the extra 0,00000026 comes from though. Maybe something to do with not being at sea level.

 

I guess the negative scale is Australian. :globe:

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It was actually -1152...I did some more sleuthing and it only happened when I was dimensioning the polyline I had used to denote rebar in the foundation stem walls. Apparently the dimensions associated with the polyline through the viewport, setting them to the 48 dimscale to match the viewport. Then it seems any input I gave to the field was multiplied by -48.00000012, I don't know why its negative, but I think the 12 comes from error compounding when using the decimal form of 1/48 (.02083333~). Anyway, it was resolved when I disassociated the defpoints from the polyline. Still wierd though.

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I used to think like that when I originally saw paperspace (like most Autodesk products, the idea was not fully formed when it originally came to market). But by the time I started using 2000 I was pretty much hooked. And now its invaluable to the drawings I do.

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And now its invaluable to the drawings I do.
That's the point. I do about 2 drawings a year with views that are to a different scale to the rest of the drawing. For electrical drawings I insert a border @1:1, for mechanical drawings I insert a drawing 5, 10 or 20 times too big and change my dimscale. Nobody has convinced me of the advantages of Paper Space for the drawings I do.
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You sound a lot like the Electrical Engineers I used to work with. Paperspace wasn't incredibly useful for them, but they were amazed when I showed them this "magical" thing called a block.

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I work as a contractor on a military installation and do probably hundreds of drawings in a year (not counting what I do for my own private company).. I, like you guys, normally prefer using model space only.. I usually use Architectural C 18X24 for my final prints (work bought me a brand new HP 610 plotter a few months ago. woohoo!).. The problem is that Facilities on the military base I work at vary greatly in size and complexity.. So scale is ALWAYS a factor and it is always changing so that the viewports can be best fit the building to the title block/sheet size...

 

Because of this, using model space dims alone can actually get really complex... I really DO NOT LIKE messing with "dimscale overall" when I have a 40 page set of drawings with varying scales on different sheets (even though I always use the standard scale sizes in my viewports).. Also, I don't like the idea of having 20 different dim styles set up just to get confused on which one is used on which viewport (wow)..

 

What I do is pretty simple..And it makes my life ALOT easier.

--I have ONE standard dimstyle for model space that never changes...

 

--I have ONE standard dimstyle for paperspace that never changes..

 

--I never combine paperspace and modelspace dims on one sheet because that would be remarkably confusing and frustrating (obviously)..

 

My sheet size is standard and will not change anytime soon.. Therefore by using paperspace dimensions I can completely avoid the headache of having to figure out what scale the model space dims are supposed to be in each viewport to make them the size I you want in the final prints.. If I want a 1/8" leader.. That's what I put in the box... Not having to put in something like 6" and then having to figure out what the scale has to be set at to make it 1/8" in the viewport on, say, sheet 6...Well, it saves alot of time and headaches. I also don't have worry about annotation scales on top of it all.. blahh

 

-ChriS

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We have some scripts which automatically dimensions our walls in model space and set up a group specifically for them (like a layer, but from HSBCad) those are the only dimensions I keep in model space, everything else is dimensioned in paperspace, with a 1/4"=1' dimstyle set up by defaultThis model is FAR from a normal run of the mill building for us, and that combined with the need to have it sealed by a structural engineer led to me spending my most of my time cutting sections and making special details (including a 1/2" scale isometric of all the roof framing 8)).

 

By now I work in paper space as naturally as I did on a board, it was really only that one dimension which gave me trouble. And even though it took more time to post about it than it did to sort it out, it still left my mind boggling all day. Its not often AutoCAD surprises me anymore so I actually kind of enjoy the weird things like that happening. I thought some others here might feel the same.

 

So its not really a problem, and the DWF's are already in the SE's inbox. But anyone have any insight into what caused such weird litle glitch?

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In an effort to allow a Dimstyle to be used for both Modelspace and PaperSpace, AutoCAD uses a negative (-) flag to restrict dimension scaling to PaperSpace only.

 

The flag is applied to the DIMLFAC system variable via settings below.

DIMLFAC.jpg

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Doesn't architechture '09 have annotative style? that way just set up 1 dimstyle, what annotative scale u usin at time an let program do the rest?

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Yes, the DIMLFAC methodology is definitely a legacy procedure.

 

I think both annotative dimstyles and associated dims with dimassoc = 2 are the more modern method of dealing with various dimension scales.

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