topic Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help. in Collaboration with other software

Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:41:42 GMT

I need help with the Drawing Tool, have spend hours to get this issue taken care of.
When using Drawing Tool to bring in the (attached) dwg surveyor plan which was drawn in feet the text comes in very large (I think 12 times the actual) which I do not have any control on. At point of placement on my Worksheet only the drawing scale (which is feet) is questioned by AC and not the text. The Resize tool can not exclude/include text either. Do not know how to make sense of it? Help.
Thanks in advance,
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:12:17 GMT

Since you're a veteran member and working in 11 (I'm still in 10) my response it probably not relevant. But...

I always bring survey dwgs into a separate pln prior to merging or referencing them in to the pln I'm working in. What I usually do with surveys is merge them into a blank site template with the plan window set for a common engineering scale (ie 1"-20') and my standard translator which scales up by 12. Once that is done I check for the merged dwg's scale, if its different I throw that file away reset the window scale and remerge.

Once done I dimension a marked line to check for size accuracy. Then I find and select all text and change them from fixed to scaled. This plan had multiple levels of groups that had to be ungrouped before that could be done.

Seems like a lot of work but all that for this file took less than five minutes. When done the survey can be referenced in and displayed at any reasonable scale without the gigantic text problem.

Dave

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:28:23 GMT

Dave wrote:
Since you're a veteran member and working in 11 (I'm still in 10) my response it probably not relevant. But...

I always bring survey dwgs into a separate pln prior to merging or referencing them in to the pln I'm working in. What I usually do with surveys is merge them into a blank site template with the plan window set for a common engineering scale (ie 1"-20') and my standard translator which scales up by 12. Once that is done I check for the merged dwg's scale, if its different I throw that file away reset the window scale and remerge.

Once done I dimension a marked line to check for size accuracy. Then I find and select all text and change them from fixed to scaled. This plan had multiple levels of groups that had to be ungrouped before that could be done.

Seems like a lot of work but all that for this file took less than five minutes. When done the survey can be referenced in and displayed at any reasonable scale without the gigantic text problem.

Dave

This works when the survey plan is finalized and is not about to change! But when it is a working progress like electrical or Mechanical plans, I would like them to update automatically when new up to date drawing is available. X-Referencing, I do not like due to many ADDED attributes to my AC file when doing so.
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Link — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:56:40 GMT

When you place a DWG using the Drawing tool, AC will ask you if you want to match the DWG's units to feet or inches (amongst others). All this bascially does is scale the whole thing by 12, where feet is 12 times the size of inches as in reality.

The size of your text is determined by the scale of the plan.

These are two separate issues. In your case, I would set the floor plan scale to what you want (eg. 1"=20') then insert the DWG as a drawing matching the units to feet (or 1 foot as it reads), because that's probably what the surveyors used. You can do this in reverse too, if you really wanna get adventurous.

What's more alarming is that the contents of your drawing seems to appear about 16,000 feet away from your drawing frame. This is probably because the survey was drawn that far from the origin orignally, but it still seems buggy nevertheless. Changing the drawing frame status makes no difference and it seems to disappear when the drawing frame is not on the screen. I guess you can manually resize your frame if it bothered you.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:31:24 GMT

Link wrote:
........The size of your text is determined by the scale of the plan.

I am shocked to see that Worksheets do not behave the same as Story or even an Independent Detail; meaning when the scale in a Worksheet is set to effect the text size of a DWG, the Worksheet scale keeps the text size to the DWG hard coded size. BUT Story scale and Independent Detail's scale effects and changes the texts of DWG text sizes properly. To me this is a big BUG unless I am missing a setting link??
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Link — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:06:08 GMT

Joseph wrote:
Link wrote:
........The size of your text is determined by the scale of the plan.
I am shocked to see that Worksheets do not behave the same as Story or even an Independent Detail; meaning when the scale in a Worksheet is set to effect the text size of a DWG, the Worksheet scale keeps the text size to the DWG hard coded size. BUT Story scale and Independent Detail's scale effects and changes the texts of DWG text sizes properly. To me this is a big BUG unless I am missing a setting link??
Thanks,
Joseph

Sorry mate - I can't replicate that here on my PC. It works the same for any type of window, where the scale sets the size of the text. Is your worksheet at the correct scale (i.e. 1"=20')?

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:13:43 GMT

Link wrote:
Sorry mate - I can't replicate that here on my PC. It works the same for any type of window, where the scale sets the size of the text. Is your worksheet at the correct scale (i.e. 1"=20')?
Cheers,
Link.

Yes I have set my Worksheet to 1"=30' and the text still is enlarged but okay in Story & Detail windows. Could it be a Mac problem?
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Link — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:20:13 GMT

Possibly. Have you tried a quick test on a New & Reset project file?

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:37:47 GMT

Link wrote:
Possibly. Have you tried a quick test on a New & Reset project file?

Cheers,
Link.

Yes, I have just tried that and still the same?!
It is funny that at 1/4" scale the text looks proportional to the drawing
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:40:54 GMT

If someone could try my file or any DWG file on their Mac to see if they encounter the same problems in a Work Sheet by use of Drawing Tool or not I will appreciate it, before I try to report it as a BUG on Mac.
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:01:18 GMT

After spending some hours I found out where I went wrong. It is a BUG or Inconstancy or a Feature!! I do not know but here it is:

If the Story scale is set to the desired Scale of DWG and then the Worksheet/Independent Detail is also set to that same Scale then the Drawing Tool will produce the correct text size. To me this is not logical, Story Scale should not have an effect on Worksheet/Independent Detail & Drawing Tool.
Thanks,
Joseph

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Link — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:57:29 GMT

Whenever a new viewpoint is created (eg. Sections, Elevations, Detail, Worksheet), the resultant scale of that viewpoint is based on the current floor plan scale. That's why it's a good idea to temporarily change your floor plan scale to 1:50 if you want to create a bunch of 1:50 sections, for example.

After the viewpoint is created, you are free of course to change it, either in the viewpoint settings from the project map, or the view settings from the view map. So you just need to make sure your Worksheet scale is set to the scale you want it to publish at.

That's how it works - at least on a PC!

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Drawing Tool-DWG and TEXT problem, need help.

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:02:45 GMT

Link wrote:
Whenever a new viewpoint is created (eg. Sections, Elevations, Detail, Worksheet), the resultant scale of that viewpoint is based on the current floor plan scale. That's why it's a good idea to temporarily change your floor plan scale to 1:50 if you want to create a bunch of 1:50 sections, for example.

After the viewpoint is created, you are free of course to change it, either in the viewpoint settings from the project map, or the view settings from the view map. So you just need to make sure your Worksheet scale is set to the scale you want it to publish at.

That's how it works - at least on a PC!

Cheers,
Link.

Thank you for explaining it in such clear language, a master you are indeed. For Mac it works the same way, BUG or not we leave it for GS to decide.
Thanks,
Joseph