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

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.


Edited by John Connor - 05.Oct.2015 at 15:00

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! 

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

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?


Edited by John Connor - 04.Oct.2015 at 12:24