Default drawing units

Sorry Rob, I just copied and pasted that quote from the op's earlier post, it was not directed at you, but rather I saw it after posting my reply, and it confirmed my suspicions.

Originally the op was directing his answer to your earlier question, to you.

The edit you did makes it clearer.

Thanks guys.

 

I have attached a drawing file.

 

I will give that stuff a go throughout the day. I know I have played around with some settings I found googling this problem but I can't remember which I tried so I'll go through all you recommended. I have used autocad for a long time now but I have never had to play around with this unit stuff apart from accuracy.

This is yet another possible way to deal with such an issue, as briefly noted at the end of my earlier post, should you wish to display both Imperial & Metric measurements.

In this case, the drawing is Metric, and I have specified to display the alternate units BELOW the dimension line.

Wow, you lot know waaaaaay more about unit settings in autocad than I think I ever will. I had never even considered this stuff could even be an issue and these settings would exist.

I will start working through all of those notes in the replies when I get a chance this afternoon, a bit to take in.

Sorry I wasn't very clear when I uploaded that dwg file about what it was. It is an external drawing I received and I simply removed all the contents for the companies privacy and just left one of the dimensions and whatever else I left on there. I did not change any settings at all. So with knowing that it was not me that changed the settings in UNITS, am I understanding it correctly that you guys are saying the company that sent me the drawings have set them up in imperial apart from the UNITS which they have set to mm so therefore it is not my base autocad settings changing any unit settings when I open the drawings?

Thanks so much guys I really appreciate the time taken to help me try to understand this and I will post up if I can grasp the concepts or not once I have a play around with it all.

Everything is Imperial when I open it, I draw a pline 120, it measures and dimensions 10'-0".

 

Command: pl

PLINE

Specify start point:

Current line-width is 0'-0"

Specify next point or [Arc/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width]: 120

 

 

Command: di

DIST

Specify first point:

Specify second point or [Multiple points]:

Distance = 10'-0", Angle in XY Plane = 0.00000000, Angle from XY Plane =

0.00000000

Delta X = 10'-0", Delta Y = 0'-0", Delta Z = 0'-0"

 

Command:

DIST

Specify first point: *Cancel*

 

Command: *Cancel*

 

Command: dli

DIMLINEAR

Specify first extension line origin or :

Specify second extension line origin:

Specify dimension line location or

[Mtext/Text/Angle/Horizontal/Vertical/Rotated]:

Dimension text = 10'-0"

If I do this, type in 120, it measures 120 not 10'. This 120 must be inches because if I measure the 37' dimension on the drawing I get 444 units which is 37' if google knows its stuff. Now if I then open up UNITS, that says millimeters yet the 444 must be in inches. If I change units to feet it says 37' so it has changed it from displaying 444 units to 37 feet, but when it was just left on mm when I opened the drawing from the start it was showing inches not mm. So now I'm even more confused about UNITS and all of this. FYI the only time I have ever had to change units was changing mm to meters briefly for ease of reading long distances so I'm sorry if this is frustrating you that I'm not understanding something basic haha.

In situations like this, it is sometimes not worth the time to fix someone else's mess. Start from scratch with a fresh file that has units set-up for your needs. Copy and paste or insert as a block the entire incoming drawing into that file. Scale as necessary. Change assigned dimstyles to your standards. There may be other adjustment necessary. Doing it this way will help you develop a procedure that should work for other incoming files. Although, I don't usually have to deal with metric to imperial conversions, I do have to deal with converting other companies CAD standards to ours and I find this to work quite well.

I did not change any settings at all. So with knowing that it was not me that changed the settings in UNITS, am I understanding it correctly that you guys are saying the company that sent me the drawings have set them up in imperial apart from the UNITS which they have set to mm so therefore it is not my base autocad settings changing any unit settings when I open the drawings?

First the good news, yes, you have nailed it, your system is not setting the units to mms, that information is stored in the drawing. Your system is incapable of automagically causing that change, unless you used a custom lisp, or ran another command to make it happen. As to why the previous miscreant found that to be an appropriate thing to do? Anybody's guess. Failure to comprehend, the gift that goes on giving? Mostly just giving headaches to everybody else on down the line.

I am glad to hear that you were not the culprit, who monkeyed with the credibility of that drawing.

This exercise is a case study in why I like to use the -DWGUNITS command when receiving a drawing from elsewhere, first of all to assess the overall file.

Now for the bad news.

There are lots of users who don't have a very good handle on all of these UNITS related issues, especially the interactions between Imperial and Metric measuring systems.

It is a particularly bad idea, to accept drawings at face value, without having personally done a little due diligence.

You may recall that upon hearing initially that the MEASUREMENT setting for that drawing was , I said it sounded like it was probably created on an Imperial template (which, having dug appreciably deeper, seems to have been the case).

Upon noting the drawing units were mms, and seemingly at odds with the MEASUREMENT variable, one then needs to figure out which came first, the chicken or the fudge?

It becomes obvious that something is wrong, as those two variables should ideally be playing nicely together, as they are both meant to be pulling oars in the same boat.

The MEASUREMENT variable is saved in each drawing, and it controls the LINETYPE and HATCH files, as well as the default scale lists that will be used in that particular drawing.

On the whole, I would say that it is much more likely for a user (informed or otherwise) to alter the UNITS setting, than the MEASUREMENT variable, when trying to deal with such a problem.

That is why I always like to check that Variable (Measurement), and am less likely to doubt it.

As Rob suggests, it is often a good idea to start with a clean screen, and set it up yourself, as he describes in his post.

Typically I would say working in Imperial is easiest on an Imperial based template.

Why do you suppose the people who sent you the drawing felt they should change the Units to mms?

It seems to me that if they had left it as an Imperial drawing there would have been a lot less drama and trauma!

Okay, there's nothing left to see here, let's all get back to work.

Thanks for that guys, it is really appreciated and I'm glad I asked! It is good to know these things and how to actually use it all properly. I'm glad it is coming from them and not my system at least then so I won't be the cause of drama for other people. I can't answer why they changed the units unless they just never checked?

You guys are right though I think I will start from scratch next time to avoid this.

Thanks again and have a good week!