On Wednesday 16 July 2008 11:05:26 James Frysinger wrote: > I stumbled across an interesting web page on architecture drawing with > regard to the metric system. See > http://academics.triton.edu/faculty/fheitzman/metric.html > > I will leave it to others to explore this if they are interested.
> The second method is to draw the building using the Imperial System (feet > and inches), using architectural units, with the main unit of measurement > being inches. Turn variable DIMALT on, set DIMALTF at 25.4, and set DIMALTD > to 0. Then when you do your dimensioning using the dimensioning program in > AutoCAD, you will automatically get the dimension in feet and inches, > followed by the calculated metric dimension in millimeters, rounded off to > the nearest whole millimeter. An example of a dimension might be the > following: This should not be possible. ALL software that handles measurements should be metric internally (unless they're astronomic - the mass of stars is known more precisely in suns than in yottagrams - or the units have no metric equivalent, e.g. the shannon), and convert on input and output. Bare AutoCAD uses no particular unit; the addons such as Civil3D, which use length units, should use meters internally, even if the user wants the labels in feet. > <------- 2x4 [50x100] STUDS @ 16" [40] O.C. > This approach and is usually called "SOFT METRIC." That should be "2×4 [40×90] STUDS @ 16" [406] O.C.", that is, the metric lumber size is actual, not nominal. > Interior area is measured in m5 > Temperature is measured in ?C (degrees Celcius) Looks like an iconv error. "Celsius" is misspelled. > "0.73 kg/m5 roofing felt." Needless to say, this measurement is not > normally used. i.e. 730 g/m², which is nine times a common sheet of paper. Nothing unusual about the unit. > To make a degree symbol, type %%d in the DTEXT command, before typing the > C. At work I use an ancient version of AutoCAD on an ASCII-only version of SCO, so I have to do this, but with modern operating systems, that's not a problem. (I deal with angles, not temperatures.) Ditto the exponent, though when making one in the area labels I had to switch the font. > A (Ampere -- same as in English), W (Watt -- same as in English), "ampère" has an accent in French, and "watt" *is* English, so huh? Forgot the volt and some other units (though architects don't usually use sieverts or grays). Pierre
