Penn Foster Civil Drafting with autocad project. ( coordinates)

[kevgrn114]

I'm having issues with several things in this project. Mainly understanding the descriptions they are giving of how things are laid out.  I'm getting through slowly.. The main thing that is bugging me is that I cannot get the coordinates to put things in the right place.  My benchmark coordinates are correct and everything else is based on that.  But when I place trees or any other object that is referred to in coordinates it comes up way to short from where I know it's supposed to be. My instructor mentioned that I had my units set to architectural rather than decimal.  I changed that but no help.  Also, the coordinates are given in inches so I don't get why an architectural inch would place different than a decimal inch.  I haven't heard anything else from my instructor on it.

 

I opened a new drawing and the same thing happens.  If I do the math by hand it still shows to be in the wrong place.  

 

The coordinates are in inches right?

 

Any insight as to what I'm missing here?

 

Thanks

 

[ReMark]

I would suggest that you open the thread entitled "Penn Foster Student Suffering with Oleson Village Map" and specifically go to page 21, the last page, and read the 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th posts.  That should get you started.  The thread can be found in the AutoCAD > AutoCAD Beginners' Area > Student Project Questions.  The same thread, if you start at the beginning, has further information that may prove useful to you as you tackle this project.

 

Re: Decimal units.  "Decimal units are unitless — that is, they’re not based on any particular real-world unit. With decimal units, each unit in the drawing could represent an inch, a millimeter, a parsec, a furlong, a fathom, a cubit (if you’re into building arks in case that rainy day should come), or any other unit of measure you deem suitable, from Danish alens to the Swiss zoll. An example would be 15.5."  Source: "AutoCAD for Dummies"

 

In the case of the Oleson Village Project the units would represent feet.

Edited September 9, 2022 by ReMark

[tombu]

US Civil drawings are done in feet, I've never seen coordinates in inches except in architectural drawings.

[kevgrn114]

That's what I was thinking.  I made sure the units are set to decimal feet.  When I put in the coordinates for the benchmark it still comes up in the same place.  When units are set to decimal, I cannot put a foot sign after it to ensure feet are used..

Is there another place I need to set the units?

 

Thanks, also I will read the suggested thread above, thanks for the help!!

[tombu]

1 hour ago, kevgrn114 said:

When units are set to decimal, I cannot put a foot sign after it to ensure feet are used..

Is there another place I need to set the units?

In Dimension Editor on the [Primary Units] tab I add ' as the Suffix and add an Angular child style with the Suffix removed.

I also include Structure styles which on the [Primary Units] tab I add a Scale factor: of 12 and set Linear Unit format to Architectural with 1/4" precision for dimensioning structures in inches.

[ReMark]

Trust me when I say, you do not have to put a foot sign after the decimal units and there is no need to create a child style in the Dimension Editor.  Please go back and read what I wrote about AutoCAD as it pertains to decimal units.

 

Note: The project instructions state the following:  "Set the limits to 0,0 for the lower-left corner and 2000000,2000000 for the upper-right corner. Note that this is a large area that measures almost 32 miles in each direction. The subdivision takes up only a small part of this larger area, but some of the surveyor data is provided based on a benchmark far away from the subdivision."  

Edited September 9, 2022 by ReMark

[ReMark]

Re:  "...so I don't get why an architectural inch would place different than a decimal inch."   There is a difference between expressing dimensions in architectural feet/inches and in decimal feet/inches.  In architecture we may note that a particular measurement is 1'-6 1/2" long.  However, if we were to note the measurement in decimal feet we would have to say that it was 1.541' long.  Here are the equivalents of an architectural foot versus a decimal foot.

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by ReMark