Text Height

[rcrespo]

Hi,
I need some help please.

I am creating this base map in model space. Its basically a survey and I am placing all the underground and above ground existing utilities

I need to annotate the drawing in model space. The plotted drawing scale will be 1"=40'
and they want the text to be 0.125 or 1/8".
What text size in inches should the text be when I set the text height?

[quiggle]

A text height of 5.00 (0.125 x 40) will give you exactly 1/8" lettering at this scale. If you are using the leroy styles set up by default, style L120 will give you the closest standard size (4.80).

[MHultgren]

At 40 scale your text height should be 5. You can create a text style in the STP file that will be scaled automatically whenever you run drawing setup and select the scale and then load the style.

[LanceMcHatton]

Another bit of info you could probably use...

Take your desired text height (1/8 or .125) and multiply it by the desired scale (40 in this case).

.125 x 40 = 5

For a drawing that is 1"=30'...

.125 x 30 = 3.75

And so on and so forth.


Hope that helps,
Lance

[MMccall.83699]

One would think that at this point in AutoCAD's development that it should be smart enough to know that it should multiply the text height by the drawing scale when in model space is the active and not when in paper space.

[badams.84433]

Mccall,

I understand where your coming from better now. By having the text style height setting return to a PS scale for the PS border text, and then back to MS scale settings when in model. This would be a good development. I'm not quit sure if it isn't there now. Let me do some testing this afternoon and I'll return ASAP.

See Ya

[badams.84433]

I didn't find any automatic text or dim setting changes for this. What I've done in the past is set up textstyles/dimstyles for use while just in PS and switch to those when in PS, and back, when in MS. But really the only thing I do in PS are Title Blocks. As you mentioned, it would be a good development if all the scales just switched back and forth seamlessly. Perhaps a wish list item?

[MMccall.83699]

Bruno,
Thank you for taking the time to look into this. Perhaps it is a wish list item. (maybe 2006 will answer it) My LDD experience is very limited but I do remember a drawing setup routine that prompted the user for drawing scale settings and then loaded text styles based on that scale. I haven't seem the anything similar to that in Civil 3D.

Civil design brings up a slew of issues that rarely come up in other industries. Example: when was the last time you didn't have to do a dview twist? I'm hoping Civil 3D will address these issues. Right now I'm not very impressed. So far all I've experienced is a complex tool with an ocean of settings to fuss with.


PS: I've used a competitors product that had this text issue handled years ago.

[badams.84433]

From what I understand civil 3d only goes as far as existing grade profiles and will not do crossections and vertical alignments and finished grade profiles yet. The product is in it's early days of development. Sorry to hear you are not impressed. When I saw it demonstrated I was. But seeing and doing is a different story. I'm sure you are ahead of the curve and will find easy fixes as the the product develops further. I would have thought that Autodesk would have built in the same drawing setup features as in LDT.

As far as the Dview rotations, it seems there are so many ways accomplish this in Autocad that a dialogue box to set a mview up would be cool. I just set my UCS to the view angle I want and type in "plan", then answer yes to "set to current UCS" and bang its rotated, then I set my Vport scale, center it, and lock it. I also save that UCS so I can get back on it easily with the "dducs" command.

[MMccall.83699]

After seeing demos of the 3D product I was initially very impressed. We purchased the software and I went for the training. The training was more for users upgrading from from LDD. Now without the LDD background I'm stumbling on some of the more basic tasks.

The current 2005 Civil 3D is only missing pipe works. The 2006 release includes this.

I'd blather on but this has clearly strayed away from the initial thread.

[badams.84433]

A helpful hint while working in LDT Civil Design. All the pull down menus in the menu bar are arranged in the order of tasks. Alignments, Profiles, Crossections. Within each individual pull down, the task you need to complete appear in order of the steps that need to be taken. These are the fundamental steps that LDT Civil Design program function ability, and of civil engineering structure in general.