Wondering if anyone can solve this for me:  I use engineering format for drawing units to ensure they interface with various mapping sources, with primary unit as feet.  I need my dimensions to be in an architectural format and I am wondering if this is impossible.  Architectural units change the size of elements in the drawing, so I am trying to avoid using this. I set my dimensioning units to Architectural, 0'-0 1/4" but the dimensions read in inches, not feet.  Is this even possible in Autocad?

Have you actually started the drawing?  Can you upload a copy of the drawing to a file sharing website like DropBox and leave a link to it in a subsequent post?  If you can then someone here can take a look at it and instruct you as to what to do next.What is the rough size of the building you are drawing?  Something you said above about architectural units changing the size of elements kind of nagged at me so I quickly fired up AutoCAD, set my units to Engineering and drew a building that was 38'-0" x 24'-6".  Double-checked my dims just to be sure.  Then I changed my units from Engineering to Architectural.  The size of my building did not change.  I'm left wondering what you did differently that you saw a change in size.  Can you explain?Oh, and one more thing, the least precise setting for architectural units is 0'-0".  Even if you were to intentionally draw a line 120 inches long which can be done with command line input when you did a LIST on it the length would be displayed in feet and inches not in inches alone.  If you click on the line and checked Properties the line length would say 10' not 10'-0".




John Connor2015-10-02 22:01:25

I'll post a link tomorrow.  It's too close to dinner here for my brain to process fully what you said!  Or to experiment, test, and respond intelligently.  Thanks for checking this out and I'll get you something soon.

One other question comes to mind re: changing size.  Could it be that you are working with a layout and viewing your building through a viewport?  As one changes the scale of the viewport say, for example, from an engineering scale of 1"=40' to an architectural scale of 1/4"=1'-0", there would be a noticeable change in size of the objects in the viewport.That's about the only other thing I can think of.  Without a copy of your drawing I'm basically guessing at this point.Sorry to be a pest but I do have yet another question.  You used engineering units to draw your building but you want to use architectural units to dimension it? 

John Connor2015-10-03 16:17:50

It's raining where I am so to kill some time I drew up that 38' x 24'-6" building again using engineering units.  I did this at full size in model space.  I switched to layout1 and created two viewports.  I edited the scalelist to include an often used engineering scale of 1"=40'.  I assigned this scale to one viewport and I assigned the architectural scale of 1/4"=1'-0" to the other.  I created a separate layer for my dimensions.  I then invoked the DimStyle command, went to the primary units tab and set the unit format to architectural, precision to 0'-0" and disabled zero suppression for inches.  Finally, I set this style as current and went back into my drawing and dimensioned the building in both viewports.  Obviously a 38 foot wide house drawn at an engineering scale of 1"=40' is going to be a tenth as small as one drawn at an architectural scale of 1/4"=1'-0".  I'm one of those people who prefer to place text and dimensions in a layout as I find it much simpler to deal with.  Are you doing something similar?  If not could you explain your method so I can better understand your approach to dimensioning a drawing?Thought I'd share this with you.

Here is the link.https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9azxe1rm2bzzmfu/AADGoA4UybP4en5sFQg7j-ppa?dl=0The drawing is called Siteplan and it has one xref, Basemap.  The preferred layout is Layout 2.  See if my efforts to share a link without an email address have worked.  THANK YOU so much for your time and effort!

PS  I am a landscape architect, so most of my work is much more free-form!  You may find the dimensioning plan a bit hard to fathom, but at least you can see my problem.

I downloaded and opened both drawings and the first thing I did was check what you had Units set to.  Guess what?  Both are set to use the default of decimal inches.  So, the reason why your dimensions are being displayed in inches is because that is what you are drawing in.I measured the front of the house using the Distance command and got a value of 26.46 inches.  I suspect that the true distance was supposed to be something closer to 26.46 feet (decimal feet and inches typically used in civil engineering).  This would be expressed as 26'-5 1/2" in architectural units.  As I said in my last post it is entirely possible to draw in engineering units yet dimension a drawing using architectural units.This is what I would recommend.1. Scale all the geometry in model space by a factor of 12.2. Invoke the Units command and set the Type to Engineering and the Precision to 0'-0.0".3. Create a new layer called VPort and assign a color other than white.  Use this layer for your viewport in Layout1.  Also, set this layer, to "no print" in the Layer Properties Manager.  A red diagonal line will appear through the printer icon.  The viewport will be visible on screen but it won't print.Now I have a question.  What scale do you want to use?  Would you prefer an engineering scale like 1"=10' or an architectural scale like 1/8"=1'-0"?  I see your siteplan has a scale of 1:8.  This is actually a ratio not a commonly recognized or used scale, as far as I know, by architects or civil engineers.4. Invoke the DimStyle command and set your Primary units to Architectural and Precision to 0'-0".  Disable Zero Suppression for Inches and/or for Feet depending on your preferences.5. Put your dimensions in your layout and not in model space.6. Lock your viewport display so that you do not inadvertently change it.Any questions?




John Connor2015-10-04 12:24:51

Last thing for this evening.Here is what your basemap would look like in an 8.5x11 horizontal format at a scale of 1/8"=1'-0".  The red box is my viewport.  I created a new layer called Dims and added one dimension, in the layout, just to show you it can be done and that it is accurate.  That's all for now.

This is so odd.  My files have the decimal units set to feet - I checked that because I thought it might be an issue.  But when you receive them they are in inches!  If they were in inches it would explain everything.  I am stymied by what you say.  When I bring up the Units dialogue box

Oh lordy.  I figured it out.  I inherited the base drawing from an architect and did not realize it was drawn in inches!  Either that or I changed the units.  Either way, it is not to scale as you said!  I am so relieved.  I thought I was crazy.  I think the issue with Arch. vs Eng. units may be the base unit, not the unit name. What I have found is that when I inherit a drawing by an Architect it comes in 12 times the actual size and I have to scale it to bring it into Engineering units.

SUCCESS!  I did switch to engineering units and scale my drawings, and although the files you received showed the primary units in inches and mine were actually in feet, with the settings and scale factor you recommended my dimensions are correct!  I am so relieved and so appreciate your help! 

You're welcomed.  Glad to hear you got it all straightened out.

You wrote, "I think the issue with Arch. vs Eng. units may be the base unit, not the
unit name. What I have found is that when I inherit a drawing by an
Architect it comes in 12 times the actual size and I have to scale it to
bring it into Engineering units."I find that difficult to believe.  A building that is 100 feet long is still going to be 100 feet long whether it is drawn in engineering units or architectural units in AutoCAD UNLESS someone, either you or the architect, is drawing "to scale" just as one might do if he/she were drafting the building manually on the board.  Remember the days we had to "scale" a drawing to get it to fit on whatever paper size we were using (usually 24x36 or 22x34)?Tell you what, the next time you get a drawing from an architect that exhibits this characteristic upload it to DropBox and post a link to it here.  I'd like to take a look at one of them.  Thanks.

John Connor2015-10-05 15:00:53

[QUOTE=John Connor]You wrote, "I think the issue with Arch. vs Eng. units may be the base unit, not the
unit name. What I have found is that when I inherit a drawing by an
Architect it comes in 12 times the actual size and I have to scale it to
bring it into Engineering units."I find that difficult to believe.  A building that is 100 feet long is still going to be 100 feet long whether it is drawn in engineering units or architectural units in AutoCAD ....

[/QUOTE]
No, it's not hard to believe at all -- it's perfectly logical, although I think the terminology may be getting confused here.  I believe by "Engineering" units Biker Chick must be referring to typical Civil Engineering or Surveyor CAD-drafting practice, not to what AutoCAD calls "Engineering units" for length.  In both Architectural and [AutoCAD's definition of] Engineering units, the drawing unit is an inch, which is the only way they can get feet and inches in Dimension text, allow them for user input, etc. -- the difference between them is only in portions of inches [fractions in Architectural, decimals in Engineering].  But Civil Engineers and Surveyors typically use a foot as a drawing unit, and use what AutoCAD calls Decimal units for length.  A building that's 100 feet long is, in Architectural or [AutoCAD's] Engineering units, 1200 drawing units long.  AutoCAD's drawing file format stores that size in "pure" drawing units, unaffected by what your Units settings are.  When you import an Architect's drawing like that into a Civil Engineer's or Surveyor's drawing in which the drawing unit is a foot, it will still be 1200 drawing units long, which will come into that drawing as 1200 feet long, exactly as described, and it will need to be scaled down.  We do this all the time, except in the other direction: we're Architects, so we scale up drawings we get from Civil Engineers, because their 100-foot building would be 100 drawing units long, which, unscaled, comes into our drawing as only 8'-4".
Kent Cooper2015-10-05 18:47:51

Thank you Kent.  That's exactly right.  I may not have explained it clearly enough.