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How To Add Dimensions To a Drawing?


abrogard

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I'm a total newbie and totally flummoxed by the help screens of AutoCad.

 

I've had some help from members on this forum and I've drawn a four sided figure which has accurate dimensions, lengths and angles, for a building block.

 

So then I move onto adding the dimensions and I do the best I can to follow the help screens. All they seem to do is extoll or list the wonderful things you can do without ever telling you how to do them.

 

So I stumbled along and created dimensions, on the Layout views as they suggested.

 

Now the dimension of the line I drew was 28.74metres.

Layout one gave me a dimension of 4.8676 metres.

Layout two gave me a dimension of 2.4422 metres.

 

What is wrong with this program?

 

Can anyone help me with this? How can I get the thing to display the lengths it already took in and drew?

 

regards,

 

ab :)

 

p.s. I'm pretty sure I'm setup for metres and that's what I inputted. But the output, being obviously different, could be in anything from feet and inches to

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What is wrong with this program?

 

Nothing is wrong with the program. You just don't know how to use it. Autocad is not the type of program that you just pick up and start using right out of the box. It is a very complex and powerful program that requires training and lots of practice. I would suggest you enroll in a class or get yourself a good book, but either way, you cannot expect to learn how to use this program overnight. Most of us have been using Autocad for many years and we still don't know everything there is to know about it.

 

The reason your dimensions are not displaying correctly is most likely because you have not set up your viewport to scale and you probably have not created a dimension style or you have not created it correctly.

 

Check here for information about layouts and viewports: http://www.we-r-here.com/cad/tutorials/level_2/2-8.htm

 

Check here for information about dimensions: http://www.we-r-here.com/cad/tutorials/level_4/4-11.htm

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Well, like I said, the dimensions are in the Layout spaces.

 

Since then I've gone back and tried dimensioning in the workspace and it has all come good. Now I've got a printout with correct dimensions showing.

 

Regarding this stuff about 'complex, powerful' programmes and not using out of the box and doing courses and not knowing everything after years of study and use.

 

I've run across this attitude before, with Adobe Premiere.

 

I disagree with it.

 

Note: I do not disagree with the contention that you cannot know all the features of the prog straight out of the box.

 

I do not disagree with the contention that it is complex and powerful programme.

 

But I do insist that it is not as good as its lovers think - simply because it does not do simple things straight out of the box.

 

And I do insist one should be able to do that

 

And I point out that no one, especially me, is wanting, expecting, needing or even vaguely thinking of knowing all about Autocad straight out of the box.

 

We just want to use it to do simple, obvious, straightforward, commonplace things straight out of the box.

 

There's many a complex, powerful programme in common use, not requiring months of training. Try your ATM. Think of airplanes.

 

I was a programmer and I was forced to learn very early in my career that the User Is King. The User must get what he wants. So if the user insists upon doing ridiculous things that crash the programme you just have to rewrite the prog so's it can't be crashed that way.

 

In the beginning of programming, old dudes might remember, we used to have progs by the score and even operating systems that could and would be crashed by little kids hitting unexpected key sequences.

 

You don't see that any more. Any more than you see motor cars by the side of the highway with their engines boiling. Or motor bikes with a pool of oil under their sumps.

 

Times change, technology changes, manufacturers (of computer progs amongst other things) learn by their mistakes and do it better.

 

Study for months? We used to have rooms of shelves devoted entirely to the manuals. Have you ever seen the Manual set for the VAX Minicomputer? There was never a prog came out without a set of manuals. Everyone was studying all the time. By the time you reached the end of your study your prog was obsolete, replaced by something that did it easier, quicker.

 

That's what computer programming is all about: the programmer puts all the thinking into the prog so's you don't have to do it. If there's ever anything that is hard, difficult, non-intuitive, it is for the programmer to anticipate it and write it in so's it is transparent to the user.

 

Defaults are a major part of any prog. You must choose sensible non-conflicting defaults, so's your prog behaves itself in the absence of logical or acceptable choices from the user.

 

Autocard seems to default to an inert or unworkable state in the hands of a novice, that's a no-no.

 

Help screens are a skill and an art. They too must respond to the over-riding acronym of computing: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

 

The help screens in Autocad send me round in circles still not knowing how to do the simplest thing.

 

I programmed for the government, so my progs weren't vying for the sales dollar. But they were still exposed to all those normal market forces I've spoken about: the need for simplicity, for sensible defaults, for idiot-proof crash-proofing and lucid help screens and technology.

 

And government outsourced much work, it became the fashion. And we inside got to see how the private world of computing worked. We saw simple tasks compounded into great tasks that would suck millions of dollars out of the government. We saw large tasks (a nationwide database of job vacancies and job matching ) become a multi million dollar rort for years and end in total failure, a shambles.

 

We saw how everyone in the private world, not illogically, when you think of it, makes a great big thing out of his own little section of the job: the coders of each little segment of the job, the marketers, the help screen writers and within each department each little section. And over them all the heads of the organisation conning and wheedling and manoevring and manipulating to score maximum dollars. It is a wonder anything worthwhile ever gets written and makes it to the marketplace and the user.

 

The plain and simple fact is that a highly complex and very powerful prog should be plain and simple in use, especially in the beginning times, for the learner, the novice.

 

It was once a major industry teaching people to use 'complex and powerful' progs. A major lucrative industry. How many millions were spent on learning IBM's Token Ring Networking - generating high paid lofty 'experts' dedicated to the proposition that only expensive study could fit you to manage a network, so incredibly 'complex and powerful' was it.

 

And then Novell came along with a graphical user interface and childishly simple pick and click management. Exit Token Ring.

 

Of course, that, too, was back in the days of paper manuals and Novell came with its complement of them and Novell, too, eventually generated schools and schools of tuition to create Novell network managers.

 

Schools happily profiting from the chain of upgrades to Novell, each one of which required further school attendance.

 

To this day Microsoft generates probably billions of dollars from training 'MCE's' I think they're called. A 'Microsoft Certified Engineer' - i.e. someone who knows how to use their programmes.

 

Again, walkers on this path constantly find another upgrade in front of them that they have to encompass and pay for.

 

Most of it is simply a scam. There's two major pushes in the computer software game: Innovation, creativity, intelligence to the point of genius on the one hand, Marketing, product differentiation, obscurantism, deception, trickery and downright nastiness on the other.

 

Marketers like to have an unintelligible product on their hands. They can sell tuition. They like to be able to chop a product into all its various functions. They can sell each separately and know that a consumer of one will eventually be forced to go and buy the other. Destroy the functionality of a prog and make the consumer pay to get it back.

 

I find with Autocad my particular little problem seems to be best solved with a LISP addin called TRAVERS. It works beautifully. In my current state of noviate ignorance I don't know if it is really true that this is the only reasonable way to do it but if it is then why? Why isn't this simple routine already hardcoded in the prog? That's a ridiculous state of affairs. It indicates to me that control has been taken away from the software development team and put into the hands of the bean counters, who wouldn't know a good prog if it hit them over the head. Not at all an unusual state of affairs in the software game, I'm sorry to say.

 

:)

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As with any program, there is a certain amount of training you must go through before you can use it efficiently and effectively. Even if that training is just a simple one day crash course to learn the very basics. You have not learned the basics, which is why you are having problems. I am self taught in over a dozen programs, and there isn't one of them that I was able to just jump in and start using right out of the box. The things you are trying to do are very simple, but until you know the correct procedures and techniques, you will continue to flounder. As I stated previously, Autocad is a very complex program and it should not be taken lightly. And I'm not saying that to try and impress you, it's just a simple fact. Autocad is not an easy program to master. Just ask anyone here. We've all been through it.

 

But as for it not being as good as we think, you are correct. It is far from perfect. We complain about it's flaws and idiosyncrasies all the time. And, in my opinion, it is becoming far too bloated for its own good. I don't even use the latest versions because they are just becoming far too convoluted with stuff that I will never use, like all the 3D functionality they keep cramming into this program that should not even be used for 3D in my opinion. Autocad is a great 2D drafting program, but it is a terrible 3D program. And don't even get me started on the Ribbon. :roll:

 

I wish Autodesk would adopt the KISS principle where Autocad is concerned. IMO they are killing this program.

 

But anyway, get yourself a good book if you want to learn this program. Trust me, you will never be able to do it with just the Help files. :wink:

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Yep, well I've learned and used a lot of programmes, too, and I've done most of them without any training. If I remember right I learned my trade, right there in University, without any training. Shocking as that thought might be to some and shocking as it was to me at the time I found that I was expected to learn computer languages and computer programmes by teaching myself. By, in fact, immediately jumping in the deep end and doing the set project.

 

And I found that, as with music, or swimming, or life itself, actually the best way to learn it was to just do it. And to this day I still know without a shadow of doubt that the best (in fact virtually the only) way to learn a new language is to set yourself a task and then do it.

 

And there's a thing: I DON'T want to learn this programme. I just want to do things with it. No, not even that is really true: I just want to do things. Like most consumers of software, like, decidedly the younger generation, I just want to DO things and I don't care what I do them with. I have no, NO, sentimental attachment or brand loyalty to the old.

 

I will take the quickest and easiest approach.

 

I am not floundering in Autocad. I refuse to flounder. I don't have the time to flounder. I tried to find the simple answer to this simple question in their help screens and tutorials and whatnot and when I perceived it wasn't there I went straight to the forums and asked and if I hadn't got the answer there pretty quick I would have given up the whole thing and reverted to pen and pencil for this little task (submit a drawing to the local council) and waited until I got news that the Drawing progs of the world had suddenly come of age and enabled easy use for simple tasks.

 

What I'm basically trying to do, the old monster that I am, is follow the kids in their progress. They make great strides, they leave us behind, they zoom into the future and they don't do it by struggling and sweating blood and wasting until hours absorbing thick manuals on how to get things done in some archaic horribly distorted and distended and badly maintained relic of the past. Do they?

 

I've done my sweating on the books.

 

I just need to make contact with a bright 17 year old somewhere who'll show me how to do it now, with today's tools.

 

That bright 17 year old might be an Indian, a Chinese, a Russian, a Finn - tucked away isolated in the economic badlands on the fringe of our society that those countries represent. Pushed out by the market forces and the big players, unable to get a look in, unable even to get the names and presence of their progs known by us all.

 

But slowly, slowly they'll make their way onto the stage. New paradigms, new algorithms, new everything.

 

Currently the newest I'm aware of isn't doing the trick for me, as best I understand it. I get Sketchup and find I can't easily dimension it (meaning construct to my dimensions rather than 'add' dimensions to a construction) any more than I can Autocad. Same with some of the others I've got. Well, ALL of the others I've got.

 

But I may have missed it in my hurried 'once over'. And it may be on the market (or freely open source available) right now, starting this week, with the latest version of the prog.

 

You are such a sensible sounding person, your remarks are so well balanced and thoughtful, that I think you'll inevitably agree with me that for this trivial (apparently, in coding, merely a small free LISP routine) function with its enormous significance and utility, to be missing from Autocad is an enormous and ludicrous oversight.

 

Even the dumbest bean counter should be able to see that if you had this up front you'd have dumb new beginners knocking off drawings of their homes, their blocks, their whatever within minutes.....

 

Apparently no. Or is the situation worse than that? Very possibly so. It is very possibly mimicking exactly the Adobe paradigm. For I'm told there is variety of Autocad that one can buy. A Surveying variety. One 'designed' with Surveyors in mind. One that DOES include this feature (which, I say again, should be a basic feature in any sensible drafting prog).

 

So perhaps this function is carefully left out of this variety of Autocad the better to suck some money out of you when you are forced (you think, in absence of knowledge of TRAVERS) to buy it.

 

My friend, thank you for your remarks and your interest in my thread here, but no, I will not be wasting an ounce of energy on Autocad beyond some sort of statutory obligatory minimum any prog deserves.

 

my best regards to you,

 

ab :)

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One should also be able to swim the English Channel as well because all it takes is a swinging of the arms, some kicking of the legs and breathing but would you attempt to do so without practice? Give me a break!

 

Plain vanilla out-of-the-box AutoCAD is not some magic program. Get over it. In the time it has evolved many things have gotten simplier. Boxes can be drawn with the rectangle command. It is no longer necessary to strike arcs to create polygons. There is multiline text, dynamic blocks, LISP routines to combine commands, standard linetypes, fonts and hatch patterns, quick dimensioning, etc., etc., etc. You want greater functionality then get out your wallet and pay for it. There are plenty of add-on packages and AutoDesk verticals as well as other AutoDesk products that will think for you while taking the tediousness out of the program. Try doing some of the same work on a drafting board with ink on vellum then you'll appreciate what you have and what you can add to the program by customizing to the way you work.

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I think that this thread should be retitled "I can't understand the Help files in AutoCAD".

 

But seriously, it is a fine example of how to NOT go about starting AutoCAD. The phrases "flailing about blindly" and "headless chicken" spring to mind. I mean how did you ever get into layouts? I have been using AutoCAD for a good few years and have never needed to use them.

 

But we should thank the OP for such a rant. No man is useless, he can always serve as a horrible example.

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I feel your posts are replete with non sequiturs and I think perhaps I upset you by failing to respond to your question about the location of my dimensions.

 

I apologise if that's correct. I didn't reply because I'd already stated in my opening post that I was in a Layout view doing these dimensions and I assumed you'd detect this sooner or later.

 

Your remarks do interest me though, especially a couple of them:

 

"Boxes can be drawn with the rectangle command. It is no longer necessary to strike arcs to create polygons. "

 

Really? I had no idea. For at least a decade I've thought of Autocad as a world leader in CAD - but you couldn't draw a box with a rectangle command until recently? You had to strike arcs to draw a polygon until recently?

 

You really have had to put up with something, haven't you? No wonder there's a fierce desire to defend the program, it amounts to defending the hours of work and mental effort, turmoil perhaps, many of you have put into understanding and using it. It is a natural phenomenon.

 

You all have my deepest sympathy.

 

regards,

 

ab :)

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woops.... I just posted a reply to that remark fellow and now I find this one from eldon, pursuing a somewhat similar course.

 

Doubtless he refers to my remarks as a 'rant', which is an emotionally loaded term with derogatory implication. Totally uncalled for and indicative of the person who uses it rather than the person to whom it is directed.

 

How I got into Layouts was explained in my first post, I believe. To reiterate: it was from the help screens, which, it appears, I have read and understood to a greater extent than that person.

 

There are some people who just use Forums as a pastime. They are not really very committed to any particular question or subject or topic that might be the ostensible issue, but rather they enjoy just mouthing off.

 

I know this is true because I'm one of them. Even in my own threads. It is what I am doing now. My kids are demanding attention, I've got more work to do than I can poke a stick at, the subject of this thread was resolved (as I've said, I think) quite some time ago and I've got what I want out of Autocad (Which somewhat highlights the ridiculousness and wanton offensiveness of eldon's 'headless chicken' and 'flailing around' remarks - and, as with the 'rant' issue says everything about eldon and nothing about me.).

 

But because of this weakness in my character I waste my time and energy knocking out lengthy replies to these irrelevant remarks.

 

Ridiculous, isn't it?

 

I'll try and bring it all back home before I leave this thread for good, only to reappear if necessary in some other thread with another question - and, hopefully, on that occasion whenever it is, with enough self control to ask the question, state when resolution is achieved and then quit.

 

1. My question has been answered. The question was prompted by a problem. The problem has been resolved.

 

2. I found the resolution myself.

 

3. I have read many help screens and 'tutorial' material. Most of it is crap (excuse the language, I am getting tired) I refer you to, as an example of how even the experts find it, a thread I pursued with interest: http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=354242

 

4. My background as a programmer prompted me to remark that Autocad has a poor user interface and poor helpscreens and poor sales philosophy for new beginners. I stand by that observation.

 

That observation has been at the bottom of the last few posts and I'll be happy to pursue it, debate it, discuss it, no worries, but I think not in this thread.

 

5. The poster who has never seen a need for Layouts I refer to the poster who gives directions for the prerequisites for walking.

 

regards,

 

ab :)

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AutoCAD Help is no better and no worse than the help files of many programs. They are, for the most part, written by programmers from a programmers point of view. That's why such books as George Omura's Mastering AutoCAD series is so popular. It is written from the viewport of someone who uses the program on a day-to-day basis.

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You expect plain vanilla AutoCAD to be more intuitive. Well so does the AutoCAD community at large. Thus, the reason behind the AUGI "Wish List". It's a process that takes time despite our desire to rush it along. We are talking millions of lines of code. It won't happen over night. Keep in mind too that depending on the field one works in there are AutoDesk vertical products (ex. - AutoCAD P&ID, AutoCAD MEP, etc.) that takes the program to a new, higher level of functionality. Plain AutoCAD is a base product that one can build on to suit one's own needs. As a programmer yourself it should be well within your grasp to make AutoCAD specific to your needs (which may not be my needs or anyone else's) using VBA, Diesel, the Action Recorder or AutoLISP. Stop complaining. Either move on to one of the vertical products, do some programming or pick an entirely different CAD package. How about Solidworks?

 

And yes, your long winded, serpentine rants are a bit over-the-top. Stop crying and start learning. There are many sources for information regarding AutoCAD from books, online tutorials, self-paced learning CD's and DVDs, to YouTube videos. All knowledge will not spring from the Help files. Get used to it or get a different career.

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Now the dimension of the line I drew was 28.74metres.

Layout one gave me a dimension of 4.8676 metres.

Layout two gave me a dimension of 2.4422 metres.

 

What is wrong with this program?

 

This is something called SCALE- it's something you need to understand when drawing. You clearly have no idea about technical drawing so how do you expect to pick up a program for technical drawing and be able to use it? It's like me buying say Dreamweaver and creating a website without knowing HTML (how do these web designers earn a penny???).

 

You really have had to put up with something, haven't you? No wonder there's a fierce desire to defend the program, it amounts to defending the hours of work and mental effort, turmoil perhaps, many of you have put into understanding and using it. It is a natural phenomenon.

 

You all have my deepest sympathy.

 

Is your purpose here solely to cause disruption? The members of this forum are very helpful and all get along very well. Perhaps you should look around the site and see for yourself before you stroll in and attempt to mock all the members' livelihoods... I guess you're trying to learn this program for some kind of career change- the high and mighty approach will get you nowhere I'm afraid other than to outcast yourself or even get yourself banned in record time.

 

There are some people who just use Forums as a pastime. They are not really very committed to any particular question or subject or topic that might be the ostensible issue, but rather they enjoy just mouthing off.

 

Perhaps you should learn from your observations?

 

... I've got what I want out of Autocad ...

 

... only to reappear if necessary in some other thread with another question...

 

If you've got what you want out of AutoCAD, perhaps we won't see you again? I'm certain that anyone who has stumbled across this thread will not be offering you any assistance in the future.

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I am self tought took me a year to learn what i have learned and still dont know the ins and outs. as far as 3d drafting autocad is better then any of the other out of the box predisgined parts crap in exsistance for my personal use.

sence ive never used 2d design cad i really dont know its limitations but would consider the 3d modling better for my use acrhtectual as to not have to draw 4 seperet views and only model one and take snap shots in the other views.

Your situation of doing your dementions in layout insted of model olny show you arent lucky out of the box as most would do there work in model and then setup the layouts for printing i would assume.

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Your situation of doing your dementions in layout insted of model olny show you arent lucky out of the box as most would do there work in model and then setup the layouts for printing i would assume.

 

:huh: I'm not sure what you mean? I always dimension in PS but then it suits my industry to do so we have lettering standards of 3.5mm, 5mm and 7mm if you dimension in MS then use a scale of 1:100 you won't be able to see the dim... leads to necessity of scaling up the dimstyle from one drawing to the next... There is a debate for dimensioning in PS or MS but I believe it's down to what you use ACAD for...

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But I do insist that it is not as good as its lovers think - simply because it does not do simple things straight out of the box.
AutoCAD does plenty of things simple right out of the box. Want to draw a line? Type LINE at the command line. You cannot get more simple than that. The reason why dimensioning isn't "simple" is because AutoCAD is made for plot output that is "scaled". How can AutoCAD know the scale you want to plot? It can't. Therefore it will never be as "simple" as you want it to be. Plus, the more simple you make something, then you take away from the advanced abilities that particular tool has to offer when really getting deep into the dimensioning process.

 

We just want to use it to do simple, obvious, straightforward, commonplace things straight out of the box.
If this is true, then why in Earth are you demanding this from a $4,000 program? If you really need something "simple" then buy a simple program. Seems like you need to rethink your purchasing options, beings that you won't use 99.9% of what the program has to offer. You don't need to buy Microsoft Office to Copy/Paste/& Print one sentence of text. Wordpad can do that for you. Simple..... no? And it didn't take an $800 program to do it! Who would have thought.

 

Autocard seems to default to an inert or unworkable state in the hands of a novice, that's a no-no.
Yeah, so dumbing down a program for beginners does what for the advanced users....? Not making sense here.

 

The plain and simple fact is that a highly complex and very powerful prog should be plain and simple in use, especially in the beginning times, for the learner, the novice.
Sometimes you can't have both. Here's an analogy.... with this statement it's as if you want the powerful scripting coding language of a website such as PHP to have all the same functionality abilities, all wrapped up in a simple coding language such as HTML. That's pretty much what your demand is from AutoCAD.

 

You do realize that Revit (which is from the same software manufacturer) has dimensioning tools that work as simple as you want. Want to know why? Because it's a very specific program that knows you're dealing ONLY with architectural models. It is highly advanced, and simple. But, it's not a "general computer aided design & drafting" program such as AutoCAD, which is why these tools are so different.

 

And there's a thing: I DON'T want to learn this programme.
Good luck then. You do realize that everything you do in life involves the brain learning something, correct? Information is not a "physical" object. Anything the brain does absolutely HAS to be analyzed, calculated, and completed in thought. Information cannot just "be known". As intelligent as a human brain is, there's no Earthly way someone can wake up and just "know" anything. Nobody could ever wake up one day and just "know" an entire language without ever studying it. Or fly an airplane. Or program in PHP. Or walk. Or swim. Or anything.

 

Glad to see you're wanting to achieve something no other human being is capable of, which is know something without learning it. :lol:

 

This was fun. 8)

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