Drawing Units all messed Up!

Hello All...

So I have this drawing, which has been annihilated by many different people. One area of concern (among many) is the drawing units...some objects are in inches, some in Millimeters, some in feet, etc...

Question:

Is there a way to change the entire drawing to inches, so if I select an object...any object, properties will have it in inches. Or, if I get area of an object, it will read in square inches?

AutoCAD 2012

Thanks for the help

Yes. Use the -DWGUNITS command (include the hyphen).

Read the prompts and open your command history window f2 so you can see

enough lines that you really understand what is going on with it.

You might want to creat a copy and work on it, until you are sure you have

acquired your intended results.

Well, the good news is we're half way there...So I did this, and the units are all in inches (architectural setting), no matter what I click on. So that is Great! However, the actual distance measurement is way off. For example: if I find area of a Rest Room, which is approximately 600 sq.ft. the new measurement is now 375,144 sq.ft. Something did not make the trip?

Good thing I took your advice and working on a copy!

Hello All...

So I have this drawing, which has been annihilated by many different people. One area of concern (among many) is the drawing units...some objects are in inches, some in Millimeters, some in feet, etc...

Question:

Is there a way to change the entire drawing to inches, so if I select an object...any object, properties will have it in inches. Or, if I get area of an object, it will read in square inches?

AutoCAD 2012

Thanks for the help

All the objects in a drawing are using the same units of measure. If you set units to Arch or Decimal your object will still be the same size.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that your objects were in different units?

From there we can help you the rest of the way.

Or take the easy way and post the drawing or a small portion of the drawing.

However, the actual distance measurement is way off......

If the actual (that is - the measured) distances are off, you will need to Scale to get the drawing at 1:1 (same as the real world). From there you can tackle getting the annotation (dimensions) correct if needed.

On the drawing, there are annotations of square footage. For the restroom, it was already measured at 600 square feet, so when I used the area command, i got 375,144 for square feet. I believe the problem was when I got the file, I went to options and changed the default scale to 1:1, because it was originally something like 1:500...something really stupid.

How do I post a small portion for you to view? For example, I could post the Cafeteria, which is supposed to measure at 2,870 sq. ft....it's way off too

On the drawing, there are annotations of square footage. For the restroom, it was already measured at 600 square feet, so when I used the area command, i got 375,144 for square feet. I believe the problem was when I got the file, I went to options and changed the default scale to 1:1, because it was originally something like 1:500...something really stupid.

How do I post a small portion for you to view? For example, I could post the Cafeteria, which is supposed to measure at 2,870 sq. ft....it's way off too

Hit reply, use the Go Advanced button in lower right, find manage attachments, follow the steps from there.

I think that is it...there's the Cafeteria

Hosur, India Cafteria.dwg

Your drawing was done in mm, use the previously mentioned -dwgunits command and go from mm to inches. Or simply scale all objects by 10/254.

I originally did the -dwgunits command and changed from mm to inches, this is when the problems began. In the Cafeteria drawing, if I take the area of the rectangle, I get about 1,850,349 sq. ft., instead of the original 2,870 sq. ft.? These "way off" numbers are present over the entire drawing?

Thanks for the help

The easiest way to convert the drawing would be to set the units back to mm and save it. Then start a new drawing and set the units in it to inches. Insert the saved drawing (with explode checked) into the new drawing and it will be should be scaled correctly. Tried it with the example you posted and it worked as desired.

It sounds like your drawing was drawn in inches with the unit set to millimeters (this sort of thing is frightfully common. My own firm does it as a matter of policy).

When you then converted from mm to inches you quite understandably told it to scale everything which meant that something that should have measured an inch ended up measuring 25.4".

dJE

Precisely.

The -DWGUNITS command is really helpful, but due diligence is required.

There are enough options there to fix any problem, but in order to know which ones

to select, you need to have some basic information going in.

There are way too many folks who are absolutely clueless as to what units they are really using in their

drawing database, which is the key. The use of an appropriate template goes a very long

way towards rectifying these sorts of issues.

Autocad defaults to IMPERIAL templates, unless instructed to do otherwise by resetting your

QNEW template preference in OPTIONS on the FILE tab to a different one.

Typically the metric templates have ISO at the end of their names.

great. It sounds like what should have been done, was before the objects in the second file was pasted into the target file, it should have been converted to inches to match the target file?

This is why I think the metric system is the spawn of satan. I may not know how long 3 meters is but I sure as hell know how long 9 ft is. Also all the damn tools I got to buy to cover all the metric crap I gotta work on.

Casio47,

It should do that. In the more recent versions, if you insert a drawing done in one unit (such as mm) the program will convert it to the units of the drawing it's inserted into (such as inches).

great. It sounds like what should have been done, was before the objects in the second file was pasted into the target file, it should have been converted to inches to match the target file?

The problem is that there are so many different ways to screw this up.

Somebody wishes, meant to, or thinks they are drawing in one kind of

database unit, and may or may not have set their insert units to match

and automatically scale accordingly. Someone else who is collaborating on the project

might or might not know what units they are using, and it just gets worse

the farther afield you go. -DWG UNITS can fix it all, but you have to

be able to figure out what you want to tell it to do first.

Due diligence.