How do i draw dimensions in autocad architecture 2013 3d view

[Jay Hatfield]

How do i draw dimensions in a certain 3d view so that it shows up according to that view? For example, I'm in isometric view but when i draw a dimension it shows up in 2d at wrong angle.

 

Thanks

[resullins]

Dimension in paper space.

[Jay Hatfield]

Ok, I understand that, but we have found that drawing dimensions in paper space can be a bad idea and don't normally do that at our office. Is there another way?

[rkent]

In an isometric view I would not dim in PS. You need to move the UCS to the plane you want to dim on and have the UCS pointed in the right direction.

3D dimensioning 07-26-12.pdf

[resullins]

A dimension is inherently a 2D object, therefore it will also display in two dimensions no matter how you're showing your drawing. If you want true 2D, aligned dimensions, I've never found a way that doesn't involve dimensioning in paper space. We also avoid that at our office, but make an exception when we're dimensioning 3D objects.

 

Also, the example rkent posted works wonderfully if you're looking at an object in a perfectly balanced isometric view. It will not work if you rotate to a manual view, which we often have to do in order to get a good view of a complex 3D object.

[rkent]

The dims will show whether the object is in a standard iso view or not, granted as it gets rotated the dims may need to be placed on another plane.

 

What method do you use to dimension on a rotated manual iso view in PS? Or are you saying you don't place dims on views of that type?

[resullins]

Well, I don't have an example with me, as I'm sitting in a REVIT class right now. But a lot of times with what we do, we have to rotate objects so that they're not at a 45-45-45 top left view. We have to manually rotate the object within the viewport in order to see everything that needs to be detailed or dimensioned.

 

This means that if we were to dimension X and Y coordinates, and the iso view wasn't symmetrical, the X coordinate might be visible, while the Y coordinate would be skewed beyond legibility, which would require an additional view.

[resullins]

Oh, and the method I use is nothing more than aligned dimension with OSNAP.