Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Dimension "standards" added to display options

Anonymous
Not applicable
It is essential that dimension "standards" be added to display options.
ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
We already have the capability to name different levels of precision, called dimension standards. Why can't they be linked to a display options? I know I'm not the first to wish this.
I don't know how all of you AC experts have details at one level of precision and your plans at another, but me, I have to MANUALLY!!! change my plan dimensions. Take a look at my plan dimensions. When I make a dimension manual I change its color to orange. HALF of the dimensions on my plan are manual!!!! That is completely unacceptable Graphisoft!!! Graphisoft, what method did you have in mind for us when we need a detail at one level of precision and the plan at another? Oh! You didn't think about it? Of course. I should have known that after 20+ years of designing a piece of software you can't figure this out on your own. I'm sorry. I suppose Graphisoft can't be expected to think of everything, especially the most common sense intricacies of Architecture, apparently.
You guys do have on staff Architects, right?

I make no apologies for my rudeness. When Graphisoft starts treating its customers with respect, designing a decent piece of software, I'll start being nice.
31 REPLIES 31
__archiben
Booster
alex

i'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here. maybe i misunderstand you, but over here in the UK we dimension in millimetres . . . at whatever scale. if we went to millimetres-to-one-decimal-place i think that our contractors would have a good laugh at us!

as i said . . maybe i've completely misunderstood you . . . ?

~/archiben
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup
Anonymous
Not applicable
We of the new empire have more complexities with our Imperial units.

Sometimes we round to whole inches, other times to halves, quarters or eighths. Millwork details and shop drawings can even get down to 1/32's. Angles of course are in decimal degrees (a small concession we make to you rationalists across the pond - maybe we should switch to nautical bearings for our angle measures).

Site and Civil work is typically dimensioned in decimal feet (to the hundredths - about 1/8" or 3 mm) which is easy enough. The angles though are in surveyors units which can turn your head inside out if you think about them too hard (and can turn the world upside down if you don't know which direction they are taken).

We did give up using roman numerals a few years back, but the Arabic system is now coming under much closer scrutiny since the Patriot Act became law (concern about muslims plotting our demise and all).

I have heard that the President is preparing a return to using knotted strings (much easier for him to understand) but there is much opposition from the tape measure lobby.

It's all part of the plan for total global domination. First we require that all CAD programs adapt to fit Henry VIII's body then we denounce the metric system to the UN as a degenerate French plot. Once we have firmly established a new US monopoly on measuring devices we will also have a dominant competitive advantage in the strategically critical field of ARCHITECTURE (control the world's buildings and control the world).



I suppose this really belongs in the pub, but I did mention CAD a couple of times.

Seriously, after working on some projects in the Netherlands it has been hard to go back to feet and inches.
__archiben
Booster
hehehe!

b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup
Anonymous
Not applicable
I agree with Alex. (I may not be as passionate.) But yes, we really do dimension to different degrees of accuracy.

I guess you could make sure that we draw 100% accurate drawings, but that is easier said than done. When you have muliple people at multiple skill levels, it's virtually impossible. A good setting would be to have another set of precision for detail windows or better yet by scale, i.e. 1/4" scale rounds off to 1/2" and 1" or bigger goes down to 1/8" or whatever you choose.

(PS if you are in the metric system don't just vote no out of spite. you can argue 'til yourr blue in the face about which is better, but truth of the matter is none of us picked either system)
Anonymous
Not applicable
I always wonder why the hell do you still measure in feet inches but after reading your post i got even more frustated.

We count all our lives with base 10. What is more natural tha meters and all meters / or * 10

Please tell me one good reason beside people got used to.. to keep that crazy system
Anonymous
Not applicable
I'm holding out for the duo-decimal system. Metric is so 20th century. Base 12 is the true wave of the future. The hard part will be growing the extra fingers and toes.

Seriously, I would like to see the US catch up with the rest of the world. Metric is SO much easier and far less error prone. (Remember the Mars orbiter that didn't?) Even so I would miss the old system. The inch, foot and yard are nice human scale sizes (not surprising being based on the anatomy of en English king).
Dave Jochum
Advocate
oreopoulos wrote:
I always wonder why the hell do you still measure in feet inches but after reading your post i got even more frustated.

We count all our lives with base 10. What is more natural tha meters and all meters / or * 10

Please tell me one good reason beside people got used to.. to keep that crazy system
Trying to explain that to someone who has used the metric system their whole lives is a loosing proposition, but I'll give it a shot just the same. A foot is a very meaningful unit of measurement. My shoes are exactly one foot long. I pace out heal to toe all the time to measure. Within seconds I can measure to within an inch or two without having to carry a tape measure around 24/7. In metric my shoe measures 30.5 cm. How useful is that?

My index finger from the last nuckle to end of my nail measures exacly an inch--another easy measuring device. In metric it's 2.54 cm. My little finger from the second nuckle to the end of my nail is 5 cm, so I guess that could be used as a measuring stick, but try to easily divide that into fifths to get individual cm's or fiftieths to get mm's.

There's more to it than just what one gets used to. There's no argument that conversions within the base 10 metric system are easier than the base 12 Imperial. But it does quickly become second nature.

I know I haven't conviced you.
Dave Jochum
J o c h u m A R C H I T E C T S http://www.jochumarchitects.com
MBP 16" (M1 Max) 64 GB•OS 13.5.2•AC 27 Silicon (latest build)
Geoff Briggs
Mentor
Back to Alex's wish, it's hard to argue against better dimensioning tools, but is a Display Option setting the best solution. I think not and here's why.

Display Options enable one object to appear differently at different times, either for working v. printing like the hairline setting, or to meet typical requirements like hiding doors on a ceiling plan. We can save DOs with our views so an object's appearance changes with the view.

But if I read Alex dilemma correctly his dimensions are NOT changing once placed. Rather he needs different precision in different circumstances. Floor plan v. detail for example. And many of us would like the freedom to change units as well. Feet and inches for plans, inches for details, decimal feet for site plans, all in one file or even one view. Even you metric fellows would benefit. Surely you don't use millimeters for site plans?

So I would I would argue for the dimension standards to be defined and named in preferences then selected via pull down in the dimension tools themselves.

How do I vote Real Problem, Wrong Solution?
Regards,
Geoff Briggs
I & I Design, Seattle, USA
AC7-27, M1 Mac, OS 14.x
Miquel Garcia
Participant
Perhaps a good solution would be the ability to define different measurement system for each view.
With Dimension Options as Display Options if you have defined manually some dimensions you will obtain different precission in the same drawing and this would cause errors on contractors.

(Alex: My index finger from the last nuckle to end of my nail measures exactly 2.75 cm. I'm not standard. Sorry!)
Miquel
Capella & Garcia Arquitectura
AC18 - AC21, iMac 27" 3.1 Ghz Intel Core i7, 16GB Ram, OSX 10.13.1