Drawing in millimeters... Dimensions in inches...

This is probably an easy answer but I can't figure it out... What i'm doing is regenerating an existing hard copy of a drawing to get some parts water cut... The drawing dimensions are in millimeters... What I've done in the past when doing similar projects is converted the dimensions to inches as I went... What i'm curious to know is there any way to draw the part in metric units and dimension it in inches??

Any answers are greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Chief

The simplest thing to do is use a dimstyle with an alternate unit attached.

Make sure that Format - Units is set to inches as it is in the attached drawing and use the dimstyle defined in the drawing.

Glen

Facepalm - except you want to go the other way. I don't have that one set up, but you should be able to figure it out. Go to Format Dimension styles and look at what is in the inches [mm] dimstyle, then create a mm [inches] one from that.

atlernate dims.dwg

Below are shots of the primary units and alternate units and how they should be set for mm first and inches second.

Chiefsmack welcome to the forums.

Use "dimstyle" on the command line and set up your primary and secondary units.

DimStyle.dwg

Thanks Glen... I understand what you've done in the attached drawing which in most cases would work great... I had actually considered doing that but then I realized I can't... I probably should've stated this in my first post but here's the thing... When I draw something to get flame or water cut I save it is a DXF file with no dimensions on it except for the thickness of the Matr'l... When our vendor opens the file they simply import my DXF into whatever software they use to create their geometry to cut the parts out... The problem is that their units are set to inches just as mine are in AutoCad so if I would draw say a 50mm line at 50 units when they get the file that line would be 50 inches... The more I think about it the more I realize that there's probably no way to do what i'm trying to... I'm sure that the vendor could set his software units to millimeters but this would most likely complicate matters... It's really not a big deal it would just save me some time and I guess curiosity got the best of me ... Thanks for your help!

Chief

To do this you would have to convert your distances on the fly and draw a 10mm line 0.3937 inches long.

Thanks guys! ... In most cases alternate units would work great but i'm sure by now you've read my last post and see why in this situation it wouldn't work...

If I have a 25mm horizontal line on this print that i'm regenerating... I, in my case would need to start a horizontal line type in 25 and that line be drawn at 25mm not 25 inches... That way when I strike a dimension it would be .9842519.... inches...

Chief

Thanks Ryder,

I figured that's what I would have to do... It's how i've always done it in the past ...

Chief

I think you'd have to draw in Inches and then set up your dimensions to display in mm (and then Inches)...

THE SOLUTION POSTED BY ME IN THIS THREAD MAY HELP (NOT SURE )

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=44875&page=3

I know I've read your post before Dipali.

Excellent description! Us old guys need to work harder to get our homework done!

Dipali, thanks for the reply... Your solution seems to be legit but for some reason it isn't working... I'm apparently missing a step somewhere along the way...

What i'm doing is opening a new drawing and doing a test... I'm drawing a horizontal line @ 25 units and saving the drawing... I then open a blank drawing as you said... Go to User Preferences, set source to mm and target to inches... Be sure insunits is set to 1 for inches upon inserting... I then insert the original drawing... When I bring up a dimension on the line it is still 25 units in length... If I can't get your method to work properly there is always the option of scaling or I could just do it on the fly as someone said previously which is the way i've always done it... Just can be a pain in the a$$ sometimes...

Chief

Dipali, thanks for the reply... Your solution seems to be legit but for some reason it isn't working... I'm apparently missing a step somewhere along the way...

 

What i'm doing is opening a new drawing and doing a test... I'm drawing a horizontal line @ 25 units and saving the drawing... I then open a blank drawing as you said... Go to User Preferences, set source to mm and target to inches... Be sure insunits is set to 1 for inches upon inserting... I then insert the original drawing... When I bring up a dimension on the line it is still 25 units in length... If I can't get your method to work properly there is always the option of scaling or I could just do it on the fly as someone said previously which is the way i've always done it... Just can be a pain in the a$$ sometimes...

 

 

Chief

check units are set to 'mm' & insunits are set to 4(mm) in the first drawing & than units are set to 'inches' in the second drawing

it should work. so try again

check units are set to 'mm' & insunits are set to 4(mm) in the first drawing & than units are set to 'inches' in the second drawing

 

it should work. so try again

That's what I was doing from the beginning... I tried it again and it still didn't work... On the Insert Dialog Box there is the X,Y,Z scaling options. What do you have this set at? ... I believe I can skip some of the steps you said and just set the X,Y,Z scale values here to .0393700787 upon inserting and get the same results... Correct me if im wrong!?! ... I tried doing this and it seemed to work perfect...

Chief