Plotting from paperspace and meters

[Koekiemonster]

Hello,

 

I'm new to Autocad and can't figure some things out that might seem really obvious to most of you:

 

I have a metric drawing and my units are meters. Now I would like to draw and annotate (annotative dimensions) in model space and plot from paperspace.

Now the paperspace units seem "stuck" to millimetres ( 1 unit = 1 mm or 1 inch are my only options in the dialog box when plotting). So if is set my viewport scale in my layout to 1:100 my meters are only 1/100 of a millimeter again and the drawing is a 1000 times to small (just a dot in the layout). Is there a way to set the paperspace units to meters so that my paperspace layout plots as 1 unit = 1 meter?

 

Or am I doing something completely wrong here?

[Tiger]

In the Plot-dialogue box where it says 1 unit = 1mm - can you change 1 unit to let's say 0.001 unit = 1 mm? How does it look then?

 

But no, you are not doing something completely wrong (at least not that we know right now :wink: ) - scales and meters and millimeters are tricky to get to grips on.

[Koekiemonster]

Setting the units to 0.001 works!

 

But... now the drawing is plotted at the correct scale, but now my annotative dimensions are 100 times too big. So should I now adjust the dimstyle settings for my annotative dimstyle and divide text height and arrow size by 100? That is exactly what I hoped not to have to do!

[ReMark]

Ah, the joy of using annotative scaling.

[Tiger]

Ah, the joy of using annotative scaling.

 

You are starting to sound like someone else we know that did not give constructive help, but just posted to bring out his opinion.

 

koekie (btw - dutch?) - I am not the best when it comes to Annotative dimensions, and I really don't understand why they should be affected...I'm hopeing someone can come in and explain what to do, otherwise I'll fiddle a bit with it and see what I find.

[Tiger]

I get the same problem that you do, the annotative dims are way too big - have no idea what tickbox to tick to get it to look good...

 

To get it looking right, with a minimum of cheating, I would do what I have done in the past (before anno-scalings)

 

1: set 1 unit = 1 mm

2: set the scale on te viewport to 1:1 (if you are plotting in 1:100, otherwise you'll have to calculate by hand what to set the viewport scale)

3: set the anno dimensions to be visible in 1:1 scale.

 

should work...

[ReMark]

Ouch! Someone open a can of whoopbutt?

 

I thought the whole idea behind annotative scaling was to avoid having to adjust DIMSCALE. The suggested fix sounds a bit kludgey (is that a word?) to me.

 

Maybe you changed the scale by zooming within a viewport?

 

Does the viewport scale match the annotation scale? No? Click on the SYNC button located on your Status Bar (lower right-hand corner of your screen).

[ReMark]

All objects that support annotation scaling possess an Annotative object property that can be viewed and modified via Properties or Quick Properties.

[Tiger]

Ouch! Someone open a can of whoopbutt?

 

I thought the whole idea behind annotative scaling was to avoid having to adjust DIMSCALE. The suggested fix sounds a bit kludgey (is that a word?) to me.

 

 

Yes, it is a bit cumbersome work-around, but I know that it works since I have used it.

[Koekiemonster]

first thanks for all your help!

 

i've been playing around with it this afternoon, one of these things that won't let you go until you have figured it out (not that I did...):

 

annotative scaling works like a charm with units either mm and/or inches but that is as far as i can get it to work properly without any DISMCALE or other DIMSTYLE changes. Tiger's solution works for me now! New drawings in metres I'll think I best dimension in paperspace. (it is just that the existing ones I have been handed now and I'm working on, I need to keep them as they are and they are dimensioned already (in model space)).

 

I agree with ReMark that the way annotative objects are presented/explained it does not seem logical that for use with units other then mm or inches you do need to start changing DIMSCALE or dimstyle values. nevertheless i got my plots as I wanted them now!

 

ps and yes it is a dutch "koekie" !

[ReMark]

And that's why I do all my dimensioning in my layout. Who needs annotative scaling? An added benefit is not having to deal with scale lists.

[Tiger]

ps and yes it is a dutch "koekie" !

 

 

thought it looked familiar.

 

Glad that you got it working. It does not seem logical that Annotative dimensions should only work in millimeters/inches - feels like I'm missing something here, hopeing an annotative guru comes along and explain things