UNITS - Dimension Unit Settings and Calculation Unit Settings

[gdford]

Can anyone explained to me why the units of the length of elements displayed in a schedule is controlled by the units selected in the calculation settings, and the height and thickness units of elements displayed in a schedule is controlled by the units selected in the dimension settings. 

Is this ever going to get fixed?

At least let me save the calculation settings with the view settings!!!!!

[Tim Ball]

It’s to allow you to read dimensions in different ways to suit the output 

If you setup the dimension preference you can save that preference with the view including schedules 

[JaseBee]

I never knew where it was getting it's units from for the schedules, seemed arbitrary (and annoying) to me. I now just make properties and control the units through the property.

[gdford]

Well .... like i mentioned above, some of the units used by schedules come out of the antiquated calculation settings, and some of the units used by schedules come from the dimension settings that are currently in operation. .... so if you have opened a schedule and then save a view to the view map the dimension setting that was current when you did this will be now assigned to the view for the schedule... This means that you can customise units by the dimension settings you have saved with the view for the schedule... You should always have a view set up to open your schedules... This is really important with the show in 3d or show in plan buttons at the top of the schedule as the view layer settings saved in the view for the schedule, will control what you see when you do this, which can really improve the speed of the operation and clarity of what you are looking for....

However - not all of the units displayed in a schedule come from the current dimension settings. Some of the units displayed in a schedule are CONTROLLED FROM THE CALCULATION SETTINGS. You probably don't even have a button displayed from your work environment to get to the calculation settings. An example of this is the length of beams. Calculation Settings are not saved as part of view, they are global, so once you change them the change may mess with other schedules you already have running... so pick your poison.

My point is - Why are we still dealing with this mess!

If we need custom properties to fix this problem then why don't they come with Archicad out of the box.

None of my Archicad clients know how to do something like this.

[Erwin Edel]

Outdated backwards compatibility sometimes leads you to search forever to find a setting. I think I even found one related to drawing units in the model a while back. I have my drawing units set to show one decimal, since this is a quick visual clue for modeling errors and I had an extra decimal creep up somewhere in schedules due to this.

The dimension preference dialogue is bad enough by itself, but I strongly agree that it should at least affect the entire view / schedule etc

[JaseBee]

+ 1 to the drawing units showing a decimal, comes in handy a lot.

I've actually gone 1 step further and created a dimension scheme that turns on all extra accuracy possible so I can find those pesky inaccuracies that can sometimes plague a project.

[JaseBee]

Details of my properties sidestep of units issue -

So in projects in our office the window schedule heights/widths were displaying in mm and the sill height was displaying in m.

I created a new property (length type) and made it an expression value with the following espression:

( {Property:General Parameters/Bottom Elevation To Home Story} / 1 m ) * 1000 mm

The "{Property:General Parameters/Bottom Elevation To Home Story}" actually reads "Bottom Elevation To Home Story" in the editor, just copies out as above.

Then you schedule the new property in your schedule instead of the sill height parameter (in this case).

However if you change the sill height value in the schedule it will change the instance for that element to a custom value and will no longer respond to changes in the model. Can be helpful sometimes if you absolutely need to fudge (and not actually change the model), and can be set back to a live update if need be.

[gdford]

You know it still frustrates the heck out of me that the calculation settings are decoupled from the view settings....
Exactly why did someone think this was a good idea???