Setting dimensions for objects

[dannyboi]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm new to AutoCAD, so this might be really obvious or not.

 

I'm drawing up the plan perimeters of buildings on sections of cadastre that I have imported from another piece of software.

What I want to do is to dimension the building shapes. For example, a rectangular perimeter may be 20m long x 10m wide. Can I set these dimensions?

Some have sections that are closed poly-lines whereas other parts are just a set of open poly-lines. I've basically drawn all of the perimeters up with no specific dimensions, and want to set these dimensions.

 

If this has already been brought up, could you direct me to the relevant thread.

 

Cheers

[mrbucket]

Start by making sure all drawings are drawn full-scale. You can set you limits by your size and tolerance of units, just adjust in Dimension style manager, or modify dimension style annotative. Look under primary units.

[dannyboi]

Start by making sure all drawings are drawn full-scale. You can set you limits by your size and tolerance of units, just adjust in Dimension style manager, or modify dimension style annotative. Look under primary units.

 

I'll take a look that then.

With regards to "full-scale", are you saying that if I wanted to show a rectangle of 20m x 40m say, then I'd have to do this initially and then adjust the Dimension settings to present something like 20.21m x 40.33m as "20m x 40m"?

[dannyboi]

I've started using AutoCAD 2010's dimconstraint function, and that seems to be what I wanted.

 

There is one thing that I can't seem to achieve, and I don't know how. I'd like to use dimconstraint for the distance between two parallel lines. Any ideas?

[kencaz]

I'd like to use dimconstraint for the distance between two parallel lines. Any ideas?

 

Depending on how your lines are oriented, you may use a simple Horizontal, Vertical, or Aligned constraint between the parallel lines.

 

Here I used an aligned constraint and if I change the dimension the lower line will move since I selected the upper line first when creating the constraint which is important in AutoCad...

 

 

KC