getting it to print 1:1 correctly

[whakahere]

Hi everyone, I am new here. A quick introduction. I am a primary school teaching living in Germany. My experience with apps like this are only with maya (I have an 3D animation degree as well). I am totally new to autocad and currently have little knowledge how to use it.

I created a model in nurbs curves in maya as I know how to model in that program and then exported it to autocad. I did this as I want to print it out to scale. It was created in mm but I can't get it to print to scale (so 50 units = 50mm) any idea what i need to do?

I have induced the file that I am using. It is the two top plates to a DIY quadcopter. boys and their toys.

[nestly]

Open the Plot Dialog box
Pick your Plotter/Printer
Pick your Paper size
Uncheck Fit to Paper
Make sure the scale is 1:1 so 1 mm = 1 unit
It may also be helpful to use "Window" under "What to Plot" to center your objects on the paper
Make sure to use the preview to verify before you plot.

Having said that, if you're going to plot from AutoCAD with any frequency, I would create a paperspace layout for your plotter/paper, and plot from there, rather than directly from modelspace, as you'll be able to preview your plot at scale as it will appear on the paper before even entering the plot dialog.

Plot.jpg

[whakahere]

Open the Plot Dialog box
Pick your Plotter/Printer
Pick your Paper size
Uncheck Fit to Paper
Make sure the scale is 1:1 so 1 mm = 1 unit
It may also be helpful to use "Window" under "What to Plot" to center your objects on the paper
Make sure to use the preview to verify before you plot.

Attachment 35031

I have tried this but all I get is my object being very small in the bottom left corner. I tried changing the values around but couldn't get it right. I have used the dimension tools to measure areas that I know the distance off and they were correct. ( a square I have is 50 units).

I am unsure what you mean by - use "Window" under "What to Plot" to center your objects on the paper.

[rkent]

Your viewport in the layout is not set to 1:1, you will need to make a much bigger viewport or stretch that one much larger and set the viewport scale to 1:1.

[ReMark]

I think you may have used an imperial template and not a metric template when you did your drawing because all I see in your scale list are imperial scales like 1/128"=1'-0" to 1'-0"=1'-0". I'm not seeing scales like 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, etc.

[nestly]

Upon further review, I think that's an Imperial template, which is why the paper/viewport is so small compared to the model.

[whakahere]

I think you may have used an imperial template and not a metric template when you did your drawing because all I see in your scale list are imperial scales like 1/128"=1'-0" to 1'-0"=1'-0". I'm not seeing scales like 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, etc.

that is true. How do I go about fixing that?

[ReMark]

First you would have to open a new drawing using either one of the default metric templates that AutoCAD comes with or one that someone else created. Then you would have to copy/paste from the old drawing to the new and scale your objects accordingly.

[whakahere]

Sweet that fixed it. copied it over. set the scale to 1:1 and bingo I am now in action. Thanks very much guys.

I do have a build log at
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1657109
if you want to see more of what I am doing. Nothing much until after friday. I have a german language test

[ReMark]

Wunderbar!