Metric Units -help!!!

I need to confirm if the following formulas are correct:

If my Metric Scale will be 1:100 => 1:Sc

then:

Viewport Zoom Scale = 1000mm/Sc =10xp
Text HG 3 mm = 0.003XSc = 0.30
Dimscale = Scx0.0254 = 0.10
Ltscale = Scx0.0254 =2.54
Blk Insert Sc = Scx0.0254 = 2.54

Is it true...

If you are a master in metric system please i will appreciate your comment.
Thank you in advance..

 

This is sometimes amusing to read these questions. But in any way. It's
allways the same
whether you work in metric or imperial only that metric is much more easy
with figures them self.

OK, you draw everything in real measures, usually in mm. Then in Layout you
make the drawing frame
also on real paper measures in mm again. Now you make your viewport to model
and you look the model
in scale 1:100 so Zoom goes for 1/100xp. And so on...
When you then add text to Layout space your 3.5mm letter is 3.5mm and in
model space they are 100 x 3.5 = 350mm

Ltscale is a bit a mesh still. It confuses lot of users, me too.

Dimscales are better to create for both words separately, ie Model and Paper
to be properly adjusted.

By the way, I'd like have a switch to lock the viewport zoom to prevent
unintentional scale changes.

Enjoy Matti

 

Hi Matti, you stated;

You should save any and all Views you want to keep. Even working in your own dwg, trying to be careful, it's inevitable that you will mess your scale with zoom e or pan or any number of things. And that doesn't account for others working in your dwgs later. SAVE Save save !!! Can't save enough.

BTW: I work in inch/mm all the time. And exclusively on one project since 1995. I even had to create Title Blocks & Border just for this project as we must draw in metric units and in 1st angle projection.

But I did NOT draw the TB & B in mm's, no, I used our inch TB & B with modifications, ie; the 1st angle projection icon, tolerances, etc. We just go into floating MS and scale the dwg to PS via xp. Works great, no problems. Dimensions are scaled in the ddim as per the dwg and is no different than if the dwg is inches or mm. If the dwg is full scale, it's either z > 1xp or z > 10/254xp. (or .03937007874xp). And for increments beyond I use the zoom in/out, +/- keys.

 

You should save any and all Views you want to keep. Even working in your own dwg, trying to be careful, it's inevitable that you will mess your scale with zoom e or pan or any number of things.<<

Saving a view only helps if you don't change the size of the viewport. To prevent noodling up the zoom scale factor of a viewport, use MVIEW to LOCK them. Then when you zoom while in MS, it will automatically kick-out to PS, Zoom then kick-back into MS.

 

Hi OC,

We are strictly mechanical drafting here. We do not use multiple VP's and therefore never change the size of the VP. But for those that do, using MVIEW to LOCK them would be appropriate. (And by making this statement OC, there will be NO reason to re-post and debate "my way" as it is whatever works for whomever. More than one way to skin the proverbial cat).

The ONLY time I would actually change the size of the VP is if I decide midstream to change the size of the dwg. (ie; change from a 'B' size to a 'C' size). Don't happen often, but when it does, it's easy to save another view and delete the old one.

As I've stated numerous times in numerous posts, we DO NOT work in PS ("ever"). We xref our TB & B in PS and work in MS. Our BOM and REV table may be in either space. PS works best as it's always full scale and the entities are out of the way when we are WORKING in MS.

So how do we deal with multiple scales on one dwg? We cheat. Copy out a piece of the part, clean it up, scale it up and dimension it with its own dim style (for scale) and it's done. I can have any number of different scales on a dwg this way and never work in PS. And ever since AutoCAD added the Properties Paint Brush, you don't really have to save dim styles anymore as you only have to change one dim and "paint" the others.

Paper space started out (in AutoCAD) as a window only and we still treat it that way here.

 

I don't consider copying, pasting and scaling up or down in the same dwg as "cheating". That's what I do and the only thing I do different from what you do is I change the dimlfac to meet the circumstances of the scaled object(s).

 

... for those that do, using MVIEW to LOCK them would be appropriate.<<

Then saving a VIEW as you suggested earlier would be of little use, as you can not restore a view in a locked viewport.


...
So how do we deal with multiple scales on one dwg? We cheat. Copy out a piece of the part, clean it up, scale it up and dimension it with its own dim style (for scale) and it's done. <<

So you need two or three "copies" of the very same elements in one viewport? Sounds like duplication of effort to me.



huh? Paperspace viewports have functioned pretty much the same since they were added to the program. There's a few more tools to play with now, but that's about it. What do you mean "started out as a window"?

 

Why is it that you always feel obligated to introduce some snide remark
to another persons observations? Is it that you have nothing else to do
but hunt through the dicsussion groups to find a way to insult another
user?
As to why I or anyone else wishes to operate their systems in a certain
way is really none of your business.

 

OC, I knew you would do this. Walt Engle agreed with my way. I am willing to bet scores of others do as well.

Correction, R14. Just in case you haven't noticed yet, you have to upgrade eventually or all support is lost. Plus SOME NEW FEATURES are always nice, but most are a bore and ignored. But I will use and really appreciate some where you will with others. We work in different disiplines and it will ALWAYS be that way.

Personally, I would venture a guess that I use approximately 10% of ALL the Commands available to me in AutoCAD. Does that mean that 90% are worthless? We all know the answer to that without answering it. But for my disipline, 10% is obviously sufficient. There are also commands that I am unaware of, but find out about right here trolling the posts.

See you forgot already! Before PS all you had was "tiled model space". And it wasn't even called that until "floating model space" came along. It was just THE drawing enviroment. You had to SCALE your drawing to make it fit on a piece of paper. So they invented PS and "floating model space". With PS always at FULL SCALE and you in floating MS at ANY scale, you could scale the drawing to PS (the window). And lo and behold, it fit on the PAPER even though it was drawn at FULL SCALE. Fancy that......So what do I mean "started out as a window"? DUH, PAPER SPACE IS STILL A WINDOW!!!

This happened before I started using AutoCAD and I know about it, so what's your excuse???? You started around R(minus)2, right?

Duplication of effort, NO -Clarification, YES! If I used multiple VP's and used them for enlarged details, they would look like s***. Why? Because they have crap in them that I don't want blocking the detail. I want a CLEAN detail. A LEDGIBLE detail. A CLEAR and UNDERSTANDABLE detail. I can only do this this way!!! I copy a piece out, clean it of any superfulous entities, dimension it, label it, locate it, print it and I'm done.

 

I am willing to bet scores of others do as well. <<

I'd have the same question for them.


Copying bits of the drawing around and scaling them up for details is how we did it in R10, then PAPERSPACE showed up in R11 and we don't do it that way any more. Now, granted you may have just started using it in R14, but it remains an R10 procedure.


Really? since when? The only thing lost is the cheap upgrade?


That was my point. Your statement that paperspace started out as ONLY a window is misleading at best. It started out as what it remains today. Now what did you mean when you said you still treat it that way? There hasn't been a change in the functionality of PS viewports since they were created.

BTW, I started out with V1.4.


Sorry to hear that's the only way you can do it. Many of the rest of us have found ways to use VPLAYER and annotations in PS to achieve the same results without the duplication of effort. And its all the same entity, if it changes, it changes everywhere, no fixing the plan, then the eleveation, then the detail.

 

No snideness or insult intended. I know guys quite happy with 9, 10 and 11 and have no intention of ever upgrading. I really want to know why someone would spend the bucks to upgrade the software and NOT take advantage of many of the best new features.

 

The answer is that each user will work in a manner or way that is comfortable with him/her. As to why I have upgraded, that is basically because of having to upgrade to NT4.0, then 2000Pro and now XP. Additionally, I teach autocad and teach layouts - BUT, that is not my personal preference. Note: I said PERSONAL
PREFERENCE. You may like blondes, and I may like brunettes - again, a matter of personal preferences.

 

Ah, a fellow V1.4 veteran! For those who don't think upgrades really give
you much, shall you and I start listing for them what AutoCAD Version 1.4
was like 20 years ago? See how many of these you'd rather still have that
way....

No object selection highlighting. And no automatic windowing if you picked
in an open area -- you had to explicitly give it the W or C.
No Undo. (Oops was there, so at least you could get back something you
erased or wblocked out mistakenly, but if for example you moved something
you didn't want to, you just had to move it back.)
No retaining drawing entities in Block or Wblock, or converting them to a
block in-place -- they just disappeared.
No Polylines, Splines, Donuts, Polygons, Multi-Lines, Rays, X-Lines.
No complex linetypes with blocks or text in them -- just dash-space-dot
sequences.
No Stretch, Offset, Trim, Extend, Lengthen, Align.
No Match Properties, or Properties display.
The only way to make an Ellipse was to define a circle as a block and insert
it with different x and y scale factors. (Of course, you couldn't break or
trim it. If you wanted a half-ellipse, you had to define a semi-circle as a
block, and....)
Layers were numbered only (no names -- you had to keep a list of what kind
of information was on what layer). Maximum of 127 layers.
Each drawing file could only use one text font (though you could define
multiple styles with it). No TrueType fonts (only .shx).
Menus were limited to Tablet and Screen -- no pull-downs, no icons, no
toolbars, no images, etc.
No APPINT, PAR, FROM or EXT Osnaps, no running Osnap, no Polar Tracking.
No Xref's.
No Paper Space/Layouts. Viewports were a way to visually divide up the
screen, so (for example) you could zoom in on different parts of a drawing,
but they had no relation to plotting.
No assigning an object a color or linetype different from its layer, or
linetype scale different from the overall drawing.
No Dialog Boxes, for anything at all.
Any change in view (zoom or pan) caused a Regen (and processors were slow).
No Dynamic or Real-time Zoom or Pan, or Bird's-eye view (except some
third-party add-ons).
No User Coordinate Systems.
No Mtext, or even Dtext. No leaders, except the dimension-related kind.
No Spell checking, or Find.
No associativity for dimensions or hatch patterns. No multiple dimension
styles. No BHatch (you needed a clean closed boundary predefined for any
hatch area, and you had to select the objects). No Hatch Editing.
You couldn't Purge unless it was the very first thing you did when you
opened a drawing.
Only one drawing open at a time.
AutoLISP was there, but no VBA, VLA, ARX, PDQ, XYZ, or whatever.
and on and on.....

Anyone still pining for the good old days?

[I agree that personal preference has a lot to do with the broader
questions. I still swear by my tablet, but can't interest new people in
using one, despite any benefit that I can demonstrate with it.]

Kent Cooper

 

Hi Walt,

Don't bother to argue with him as he is ONLY here to stir up trouble. Yes he is knowledgeable in some areas, but for the most part he is a bored and ignorant piece of crud who has nothing better to do. Yes OLD-CRUDaver, I am calling you stupid and a trouble maker. And you as a CAD Manager (a boss), that has to be a LIE as no one would work with anyone as inflexible, stupid and a BLOWHARD as you.
Then he said:
No you didn't do it that way in R10, you scaled EVERYTHING in R10. Then PS showed up and you didn't draw on it until R2000. Stop lying you stupid ignorant blowhard. And I started on R12. I said I am still on R14. And I also work on R2002. Plus we have SoidWorks here. And I amend my previous statement that you started on R(minus)2 to R(minus)1.2. better?

So Walt, I say just ignore him if possible, but I kinda like pointing out his STUPID remarks and comments and totally "noodling" him up in the process. Later!

 

That's fodder for a whole 'nuther thread. My pet peeve was editting text, had to re-type the entire stinkin' line at a maximum of 128 characters per line. My first lisp was a CHGTEXT, rudimentary text editor, that let us replce specific strings with new ones. Oh, and instead of extend and trim you had to use CHANGE (still a handy command) on one element at a time. For fun, draw some lines and circles, issue the CHANGE command and select them, when it prompts for change point, key-in DRAG and press enter.

We're way off-topic here, prolly be bounced soon.

 

Hi Kent,

No I didn't have the dis-pleasure to be totally frustrated with AutoCAD back in those days as I started with R12 (the last DOS version). Then R13, (the 1st windows version). But I did since 1986 work on another simple 2D program that had as many "No's" as you list for early AutoCAD. But I had functionality with that simple 2D program that AutoCAD STILL doesn't have. eg: explode text and the ability to draw your own font and map it to the keyboard, then type with it. I created the Greek alphabet as it was not part of their text library. And a simple toggle between units. You were not forced to work in one "unit" and scale all others to be able to have more than one unit in a single drawing. I switch back and forth between inch and mm all day, everyday and would appreciate that SIMPLE toggle NOW. But AutoCAD acts as if this were something HARD to do. Pfft... $50.00 software can do it.

So it looks like my pre-AutoCAD software experiences were a little easier to live with than yours and OC's. I feel for everyone that had nothing else to work on during the AutoCAD Version 1 thru R13 days. It didn't start to become bearable in my opinion until R14. But to each his own. Something that OC will never be able to understand.

 

V.2.6, but who is counting.

About your tablet, we started with tablets but switched to tool bars.

Have you ever tried "TOTS" (tablet on screen)? You still use your tablet but
don't have to look at it. As you mover your cursor in the direction of a
menu area on the tablet, that menu area pops up on your screen. Very slick.
If it were not for the problems with not having a tablet mounted flush with
the desk or table, we might have stayed with them.

Dave Alexander
Keen Engineering Co. Ltd.
www.keen.ca

 

What version of AutoCAD you are using has absolutely nothing to do with
being productive. The tools and proceedures we developed with R 9 and R 10
are still the basis of good productive work and intrestingly enought not
used by most Plumbing and HVAC engineering companies including the one I am
presently with.

Dave Alexander
Keen Engineering Co. Ltd.
www.keen.ca

back in those days as I started with R12 (the last DOS version). Then R13,
(the 1st windows version). But I did since 1986 work on another simple 2D
program that had as many "No's" as you list for early AutoCAD. But I had
functionality with that simple 2D program that AutoCAD STILL doesn't have.
eg: explode text and the ability to draw your own font and map it to the
keyboard, then type with it. I created the Greek alphabet as it was not part
of their text library. And a simple toggle between units. You were not
forced to work in one "unit" and scale all others to be able to have more
than one unit in a single drawing. I switch back and forth between inch and
mm all day, everyday and would appreciate that SIMPLE toggle NOW. But
AutoCAD acts as if this were something HARD to do. Pfft... $50.00 software
can do it.

to live with than yours and OC's. I feel for everyone that had nothing else
to work on during the AutoCAD Version 1 thru R13 days. It didn't start to
become bearable in my opinion until R14. But to each his own. Something that
OC will never be able to understand.

 

The tools and proceedures we developed with R 9 and R 10 are still the basis of good productive work <<

That depends. Pre-paperspace procedures for those of us who frequently have multiple scales on one drawing or have moved to 3D are considerably less productive than post-paperspace procedures.

Prior to R11 it was impossible to show three different views of the same 3D model on one drawing.

 

Hi Dave,

re: your response:

Reply From: Dave Alexander
Date: Apr/12/04 - 14:50 (CDT)

Re: Metric Units -help!!!
Dave Alexander
Keen Engineering Co. Ltd.
www.keen.ca

back in those days as I started with R12 (the last DOS version). Then R13,
(the 1st windows version). But I did since 1986 work on another simple 2D
program that had as many "No's" as you list for early AutoCAD. But I had
functionality with that simple 2D program that AutoCAD STILL doesn't have.
eg: explode text and the ability to draw your own font and map it to the
keyboard, then type with it. I created the Greek alphabet as it was not part
of their text library. And a simple toggle between units. You were not
forced to work in one "unit" and scale all others to be able to have more
than one unit in a single drawing. I switch back and forth between inch and
mm all day, everyday and would appreciate that SIMPLE toggle NOW. But
AutoCAD acts as if this were something HARD to do. Pfft... $50.00 software
can do it.

to live with than yours and OC's. I feel for everyone that had nothing else
to work on during the AutoCAD Version 1 thru R13 days. It didn't start to
become bearable in my opinion until R14. But to each his own. Something that
OC will never be able to understand.<<

Where did you see the word productive in my post?

Oh I see it, here it is. It was OC, not me.

Reply From: OLD-CADaver
Date: Apr/08/04 - 15:06 (CDT)

Re: Metric Units -help!!!
See, you were mistaken. Now jump on him.