Dimensions- Imperial and Metric

[Anonymous]

I have a client that would like to see both imperial and metric equivalent dimensionson our cd's. Is this possible to show without having custom text everywhere?
I know you can change the preferences globally, but you can only have one or the other.

Thanks,
Michael

[Anonymous]

Wow! Here is a new wrinkle in the dimensions debate. Showing two different systems at once.

Michael,

It is currently impossible to display different dimension settings simultaneously even if some are static. Custom text seems like a real nightmare.

The only (halfway) decent workaround I can think of would be:
1. Create a special dimensions layer for the added system.
2. Publish separate views with just that layer (after resetting the dimension prefs, naturally).
3. Place these second dimension drawings under the corresponding primary drawings.

The main drawings can be live linked from the PLN but the secondary dimensions will have to be published as PMKs due to the manual change in preferences. Be sure to add hotspots in ArchiCAD to ensure accurate alignment in PlotMaker. You can even align the dimension strings and/or set the secondary strings to a white (non-printing) pen.

I hope this is useful. I don't envy your task.

[Anonymous]

Thanks,
I figured it would have to be a work around. I hate to say it, but this is one area that Graphisoft could look at AutoCAD and dimension styles: imbeding styles within the pln file, instead of a global preferfence.

We need some more custom settings in ArchiCAD?

But it could be as simple as a preference within the tool it self- to use the global or the local pref.

Luckly, This is not a request from my client. My co-worker's headache.

[Richard Morrison]

Tools>Secondary Dimensions ??

This does what you want, but you need to remember to update if you change any dimension.

[Anonymous]

mkopecky wrote:
Thanks,
I figured it would have to be a work around. I hate to say it, but this is one area that Graphisoft could look at AutoCAD and dimension styles: imbeding styles within the pln file, instead of a global preferfence.

We need some more custom settings in ArchiCAD?

But it could be as simple as a preference within the tool it self- to use the global or the local pref.

Luckly, This is not a request from my client. My co-worker's headache.

This has been extensively discussed in the wish list and I hope will be a high priority item in future upgrades.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Richard, it's perfect!

[Anonymous]

I'd like to point out that this is an extremely big problem if you are an Architect working doing a government job in America. AFAIK you HAVE to display both systems in all dimensions. Part of the government trying to move to metric.

[Richard Morrison]

Alex:

Why is this "an extremely big problem"? We can show automatically both imperial and metric with the secondary dimensioning tool. And I think this tool was in 7.0, as well.