Aec Dimensions, units and drawing setup

[eirik.kjolsrud]

Hi everyone.

I'm new to this forum (was recommended in pushpullbar), so a brief intro.

I am a Norwegian architecture educated from Australia (Newcaste), I live in Germany and work in Luxembourg. I guess that makes me somewhat international... ; )

We have recently upgraded to ACA 2010 and are fully intent on using it's 3D potential, which is giving us a lot of headaches. Most of our work earlier was ACA 2008 for 2D drafting and ArchiCAD for 3D work.

....

So. Problems... Our CAD manager wants everything to be drawn in meters, with 0.0000 precision. Unfortunately, every time I create a new drawing it is setup with millimeters, and I have to go to menu (A) - utilities - drawing setup to change to meters. When I have done this I always check the 'Save as Default' box, but it doesn't change anything. Then I rescale the model and paperspace and usually I'm good to go.
Unfortunately, when I select the AEC Dimensions and associate them to a wall object, the dimension is listed in millimeters. Normal dimensions and measurements always come in meters.

- How can I change the AEC Dimension units?
- How can I get default meter dwgs?
- Everytime I try to use the 'Dimensions, aligned' tool my ACA 2010 crashes with no warning. Is this a known bug? Any fixes?

Best,
Eirik

[H'Angus]

Welcome to AUGI & congrats on your first post :beer:

The units is saved per drawing. How are you starting a new drawing? You should set the drawing units in a template file and then use that template to start new drawings.

By doing that it may automatically sort out your AEC Dim problem, if not then I expect you will need to go into the dimension style associated with the AEC Dim and change the units/precision accordingly. Again do this in your templates to avoid having to repeat each time.

Is that any help?

PS: I'm still only on 2008 & 2009

[eirik.kjolsrud]

Thanks Angus.

I thought I could set a system wide variable to change into meters for the project. I have been creating new drawings with the qnew command (or the 'new icon').

As you suggested I created a template for the meter setup and I now create new drawings with this template. It works.

I also found a solution to the AEC Dimensions problem. With the OP command there are settings 'AEC Dimesion' where you can set the display to meters. I changed this for the template as well, and now all new drawings come with the correct dimensions.

I still have some issues with views being created with millimeter setup and the upscaling the does not work on the z height in levels, but I'll keep on trying...

Cheers,
Eirik

[H'Angus]

Glad you got it working :)

In the UK we always work in millimetres for Architectural work and in metres for Site work etc. So is the standard in Luxembourg to do everything in metres? Just curious that's all.;)

[eirik.kjolsrud]

Look, I'm also used to millimeters. In Norway and Australia the work I've done has always been in millimeters.
In Luxembourg as far as I know they use meters, centimeters and millimeters. It varies from office to office. Our Cad manager is German and he insists on meters so that's what we use.... I don't know what the standard is in Germany.
I set up the meters with 0,000 three decimals, and then it sort of becomes millimeters.. works for me : )

But the drawing setup is a ***** when everything defaults to millimeters and our partners send us millimeter drawings...

[dzatto]

One other tip. You can set your custom template to open when using the Qnew command. You set this in Options, under the Files tab. Go to Template Settings > Default templte file name for Qnew. Just path that to your new template.

[H'Angus]

One other tip. You can set your custom template to open when using the Qnew command. You set this in Options, under the Files tab. Go to Template Settings > Default templte file name for Qnew. Just path that to your new template.

LOOK!

Okay good tip!

Sorry Danny Boy good to hear from ya how ya doing mate? :beer:

[dzatto]

LOOK!

Okay good tip!

Sorry Danny Boy good to hear from ya how ya doing mate? :beer:
WHERE!??

Ha, doing pretty good Angus. :lol:

How's things on your side of the pond? Keeping out of trouble? You need to get a PS3 or Xbox 360 so we can play online....................

[H'Angus]

WHERE!??

Ha, doing pretty good Angus. :lol:

How's things on your side of the pond? Keeping out of trouble? You need to get a PS3 or Xbox 360 so we can play online....................

Yeah, I'll tell my better half it's a priority on your say so ;) We got a Wii though :)

[dzatto]

Yeah, I'll tell my better half it's a priority on your say so ;) We got a Wii though :)
I got one of those too! Since I got the PS3, I never play it, though. Hell, I just got the Xbox and only played it a few times. My kid likes it, though. ~shrug~

OOPS, sorta off topic. Sorry.