dwg into Archicad 11 scale problem. Plan opens 12x larger.

[Anonymous]

When I open an Autocad DWG file in Archicad 11 (Mac) (yes, I know were at 13 now), the drawing is 12 times larger than it should be. So an existing dimension that shows 6' on the drawing would show to be 72' if I was to add a new dimension line. The result is the same no matter what I set the scale factor to when I open the file. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

[Srinivas]

It seems a problem with the Dxf-Dwg Translator..More details on what it is and how to setup here.

http://www.archicadwiki.com/Translator

[Karl Ottenstein]

As srinivas says, your translator settings are not set up properly for the dwg. Apparently the dwg has 1 unit as a foot and your translator has 1 unit as an inch.

NO standard translator will work with all files. You must customize. You'll see the translator selection when you open/merge/etc the dwg - at the least, you need to change the units and save it with a new name. (Typically, you may want a translator for each unit value - but in general, most consultants use the same settings all the time, so a translator-per-consultant is a good approach, too.)

Review the other options, such as what to do with AutoCAD blocks, etc and set them as desired.

Read the wiki and search the forums... another tip you want to be aware of is text size conversion. It is important that you set the scale for your plan / worksheet / whatever into which you are bringing the dwg to match the scale of the dwg so that text will come in with a reasonable size. Ancient tip from Djordje.

Cheers,
Karl