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Why do architects use Scale?


Pixiesoft

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I have never really understood why use scale. The only reason I can come too is that with scale you dont have to dimension everything up in print on the actual drawing.

 

But what I don't get in on drawings when there is physical dims why not do it 1:1 instead of scale. seems like extra work to me or can someone elaborate?

 

If you didn't use scale, you would need a very large sheet of paper and a huge plotter? lol

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If every line is draw correctly and lets face it that shouldnt be a problem should it ? why not scale off a drawing providing its been plotted on the right paper and scale and isnt so small you can't make out the start and finish of a line.

 

Scaling is inaccurate. If you have an A3 plan showing a 100m long building and something is not

dimensioned, the papersize and scaling simply introduces an error/ambiguity that is too great.

 

I hate when i see the box saying "this drawing must not be scaled" on site working drawings (its just a cop out to cover their mistakes) , if thats the case then they should add dims we cant ring the who ever everytime we need a dim of a drawing can we ?

 

I am guilty of this :P

 

Everything should defiantly be drawn correctly, although it is hard to tell the difference between 20m and 20.21m on an A3 plan scaled at 1:200 say. Everything should be dimensioned although occasionally something is missed or is ambiguous. Considering that most construction is limited by local council by-laws from the hours of 7am to 6pm approximately, that is for the bulk majority of the time during office hours where the contractor can easily ring and check if he is unclear.

 

Not to mention that a lot of contractors work with PDFs etc and may not have printed them to scale. Unless we print the drawings (not always the case as we charge for this) we cannot guarantee they are printed to scale.

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If every line is draw correctly and lets face it that shouldnt be a problem should it ? why not scale off a drawing providing its been plotted on the right paper and scale and isnt so small you can't make out the start and finish of a line.

 

I hate when i see the box saying "this drawing must not be scaled" on site working drawings (its just a cop out to cover their mistakes) , if thats the case then they should add dims we cant ring the who ever everytime we need a dim of a drawing can we ?

 

How do you know it's been plotted on the right size paper? I don't have the ability to print anything bigger than 11 x 17 without going to kinko's, so I've added a note to my drawings that says "SCALE : x"=y' IF PLOTTED ON a"xb" SHEET.

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What annoys me (although is trivial really) is that they work in mm while I work in m :)
LMAO! That's nothing! I've recently had a "nice" project where the Arch & Struct worked in mm, the surveyor in m, the MEP guys in inches, the landscaper in yards and the interior designer in cm. Wanna see a painful exercise? :glare:

 

As for "scaling", do whatever comes naturally to you. Stick to MS if that suits your needs. Place scale bars if that cooks your steak! Work with multiple VP's at different scales and draw everything at 1:1 in MS. Etc. etc. etc. As long as it doesn't cause extra pain just to get your document to the recipient!

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Not to mention that a lot of contractors work with PDFs etc and may not have printed them to scale. Unless we print the drawings (not always the case as we charge for this) we cannot guarantee they are printed to scale.

 

How do you know it's been plotted on the right size paper? I don't have the ability to print anything bigger than 11 x 17 without going to kinko's' date=' so I've added a note to my drawings that says "SCALE : x"=y' IF PLOTTED ON a"xb" SHEET.[/quote']

 

Even with that note you could find that the print is NTS on the specified paper. Especially with the PDF/DWF stuff sent to the contractor. The reason? Some printers have larger/smaller margins and most go and simply set the page "Scaled to fit" when printing from PDF/DWF - so the border doesn't cut off or doesn't have large gaps along the sides. That means your page is actually printed at something like 1:1.12 scale (or some such arb number), which means your 1:200 is actually 1:224 (even though it was designed to plot "correctly" on an A1 and printed on an A1).

 

Apart from that you can't be sure how accurate the plotter itself is. All that's needed is for something which is a bit overdue on servicing and the roller doesn't move the page by the EXACT distance for each head-pass. Never mind that you get "better" and "worse" accuracy from different models / manufacturers!

 

The "safest" bet is to stick with the "Do not scale ... use dimensioned ..." note. Though in such case you could even ask: "Why need any particular scale at all? Just zoom it to fit inside the VP as no-one's allowed to bring a scale rule close to the paper anyway!" Of course that's going to make stuff like text heights a bit complex to calculate! And I'm sure the QS is going to go nuts when the PDF's aren't actually on a scale!

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How much better if you add a scale bar with the note, then folk have no excuse for not knowing :D

 

Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? 1000 year old map maker's tool...so very obvious! Does not matter one bit then what the scale is (or is not)!

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I agree with the "do not scale" note. If you decide its wrong and build it some other way, not my problem. Even if I left it off, pick up your phone and call me. You can't tell me that a project manager on a job site doesn't have phone in his pocket.

 

You really don't have to worry about that much anyway. Most of the contractors I've worked with on jobs can't read a tape measure, much less a scale. Doesn't matter what I size I make the openings, I always have to go back and change the curtainwall drawings because they missed. Some are better than others, and only miss by an inch or so, but some think that if they poured concrete in the right town it's close enough.

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If every line is draw correctly and lets face it that shouldnt be a problem should it ? why not scale off a drawing providing its been plotted on the right paper and scale and isnt so small you can't make out the start and finish of a line.

 

I hate when i see the box saying "this drawing must not be scaled" on site working drawings (its just a cop out to cover their mistakes) , if thats the case then they should add dims we cant ring the who ever everytime we need a dim of a drawing can we ?

 

I would fire someone from the site if they tried to build something based off physically scaling the drawing. Use the dimensions on the drawing, if not there, have them determined and use the actual dimension. "this drawing must not be scaled" is on a drawing to prevent those that are unable to use a scale from trying to build things they shouldn't be building.

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I agree with the "do not scale" note. If you decide its wrong and build it some other way' date=' not my problem. Even if I left it off, pick up your phone and call me. You can't tell me that a project manager on a job site doesn't have phone in his pocket.

 

You really don't have to worry about that much anyway. Most of the contractors I've worked with on jobs can't read a tape measure, much less a scale. Doesn't matter what I size I make the openings, I always have to go back and change the curtainwall drawings because they missed. Some are better than others, and only miss by an inch or so, but some think that if they poured concrete in the right town it's close enough.[/quote']Yep, I know the feeling about contractors phoning you to tell you the something stupid like the grid-ceiling doesn't fit into the room. You go down to site, and realize what he's actually on about: If he lines up the grid on one side it gets chopped of skew on the other. But then he wants to blame you for that - you show him the drawing (on his site-office table) and point out the dimension shows no-where that this wall is at an angle!

 

This caused us to proliferate yet another note (especially on detail drawings): Manufacture to commence only after site measurements taken & adjusted for. You can't believe how many times they send in for Alum. windows to be altered because they built the opening wrong! WTF!

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Back to the original question.

 

They most likely began their drafting on boards and began CAD before the advent of paper space.

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This caused us to proliferate yet another note (especially on detail drawings): Manufacture to commence only after site measurements taken & adjusted for. You can't believe how many times they send in for Alum. windows to be altered because they built the opening wrong! WTF!

 

Oh yeah, I can believe it. That's what I was talking about with the curtain wall. They won't let us do that....we have to get the stuff underway, even though we know it's going to get changed. The glass manufacturers love it...they get to sell the glass 2 or 3 times for each job (or at least some of it). No way to cut laminated, insulated glass down you see. If it's the wrong size, you start over. The aluminum isn't too bad if it's a stocklength job where the contractor fabricates on site. I just have to change the shop drawing to fit the new openings. If it's a factory fabricated job, then you get to buy new aluminum too.

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Back to the original question.

 

They most likely began their drafting on boards and began CAD before the advent of paper space.

Wait! That's me! I started on a tilting-A0-drawing-board with a weight operated horizontal ruler and triangles with one of those scale rulers to "measure" the distances I was drawing. The only "crashes" I ever got was pens becoming clogged!

 

Then I started on ACAD R9, and it didn't have any PS, so the only way was to work as dbroada does now (i.e. everything in MS as that's all there is). Made for painful calculations when it came to detail sheets at various scales though! Then my first introduction to PS (at least the first time I used it) was with R13. Once I started using that there was no looking back! Everything become so simple! Then came R15 (or rather 2000 ) with multiple PS's and it became even nicer - didn't need a separate layout DWG for those times when the page only shows part of the entire model anymore!

 

So if you find anyone in Arch (and most other disciplines) using only model space and scaling their linework to suit a varying scale or insert/attach a model DWG to a MS layout DWG (or worse redrawing a portion of another DWG), they need to wake the hell up! They're 15+ years behind the times! If their particular discipline doesn't ever require varying scales on the same drawing or a drawing only showing a portion of the whole, they they can be excused for not wanting to use PS (but IMO only then). As soon as one or both those items are used it makes no sense when sticking to MS-only.

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If their particular discipline doesn't ever require varying scales on the same drawing or a drawing only showing a portion of the whole, they they can be excused for not wanting to use PS (but IMO only then). As soon as one or both those items are used it makes no sense when sticking to MS-only.
At last, a PaperSpace user who understands that ModelSpace is a viable alternative. I have lost count how many times on here I have be TOLD that I MUST use PaperSpace to be considered a good draughtsman. I draw on average somewhere between 0 and 2 different scale views a year, most often 0. Electrical schematics/loop diagrams comprise a large percentage of my output and have no advantage in being in paper space at all, but still I am told that I'm doing it wrong.
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Yep! It's probably that the overwhelming majority can find some reason for using PS. And therefore the "default" answer is to use PS always, since it's not going to make your drawings any less usable.

 

If you find your case works fine with it, then good for you! I'd just say that as soon as you find you have to start splitting drawings into various xrefs and use xclip extensively, and/or scale to suit ... you're wasting your time in MS-only. So the MS/PS thing depends on your usage, but in nearly all cases PS has some benefit (if not necessity) - probably just not in yours or similar.

 

BTW, about the OP: Is it possible that the arch's were actually using some other program than ACad? I know some of the older MicroStation versions would export to DWG, but place the title block in MS at 1:1 scale and scale the actual drawing down to suit. Perhaps their program does similar?

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At last, a PaperSpace user who understands that ModelSpace is a viable alternative. I have lost count how many times on here I have be TOLD that I MUST use PaperSpace to be considered a good draughtsman. I draw on average somewhere between 0 and 2 different scale views a year, most often 0. Electrical schematics/loop diagrams comprise a large percentage of my output and have no advantage in being in paper space at all, but still I am told that I'm doing it wrong.

 

Tell them to get over it mind thier own bloody business. As I said in an earlier post, I have clients that do this all the time. Sure, you may not be taking advantage of some of the things paperspace will do for you, but so what? That has nothing to do with being a good draftsman (even if you Brits don't spell it right:lol:).

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That has nothing to do with being a good draftsman (even if you Brits don't spell it right:lol:).

 

draftsperson... women are also. :)

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The most important things to remember, whether model space or paper space, is the drawing correct and conveys the info.

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Yes! Not using PS does NOT make you a "bad" draftsman, or draftsperson, or draughtsman, etc. etc. (BTW over here they call us "Architectural Technicians" - apparently to be "politically" correct :?). It just means you either don't need the PS or you don't use the tool to its fullest.

 

Only after you're able to produce a drawing to relay the correct info should you worry about getting it done in the fastest / easiest way possible. If you receive no benefit from using PS, you can see it as just adding another layer of complexity for no reason whatsoever - though I think that's debatable to an extent.

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(even if you Brits don't spell it right:lol:).

 

I think that the ENGLISH should have the last say on how words are spelt in ENGLISH.

We all know that our children take time to learn how to spell correctly.

 

(No offence intended, just making a point).:twisted:

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