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Hello everyone, I am having a bit of an issue when using the AREA command. I've noticed that the UCS (User Coordinate System) changes when I attempt to take the area of an existing object (when I trace over a rectangle, for example). The changes to the UCS are dramatic, the drawing zooms out and rotates depending on how I traced the object. The change occurs when I click the third time. This reminds me of setting a new UCS where you would first select the x-axis direction with two clicks followed by the direction of the y-axis with one click. There is no change to UCS when I trace out an arbitrary shape. Here's what I've been able to figure out and it involves the UCSFOLLOW setting. When I set the UCSFOLLOW variable to 0, everything works great and I don't get the zooming out and rotation. When it's set to 1, well, the PLAN VIEW changes by zooming out and rotating. If I zoom back in and complete the area and press enter, everything goes back to normal. So I still manage to get the area of the object that I want, but the zooming out and rotation makes it very inconvenient. Okay, I understand that the UCSFOLLOW solves the problem, but is it normal for the AREA command to make changes to the UCS by default? I ask because creating a new drawing, creating a rectangle and using the AREA command doesn't cause the same UCS change, regardless of the UCSFOLLOW setting. This makes me think the drawing I am working on has objects with a coordinate system that differs from the WCS, right? Is there a way to have the UCSFOLLOW active while not having the AREA command alter the UCS? If I left crucial information out, please let me know, and I'll elaborate! I'm using AutoCAD 2012. Thanks!

Hello, I'm making a car model on autocad 3d and I have to make all of its differents surfaces flatten on a same plane (similar to papercrafting). I must get the "real sizes and dimensions" of all rectangles and triangles that compounds my model. This is about 20 differents planes defined by the lines of the car. The idea of this project is to make it possible to build the car from a printed paper. Ive tried to use UCS making the "new xy" plan on the diferents surfaces but it would take like a day to make this in the whole model. I've also tried rotating the surfaces, but inst accurate enough. The car is not yet solid; I just used the normal line commands. I'm plannig to use 3DFACE to create all the surfaces. The only thing I could come up with was to define various UCS and then use 3DALIGN with a previous rectangle made on the WCS. But this is not very efficient. Does anyone have any suggestion? Is there any way to "transfer" the differents surfaces to a same plane so that I can get the "real dimensions" (the real area, line sizes) of them? I'm not sure being clear enough.. Thanks!

I have setup a UCS that corrects the problem, however I cannot figure out why the WCS is not straight when I change back to it (WCS). I have found a few posts that address the issue, but they haven't really answered the question of "why" it is happening. I know that WCS is a constant, so shouldn't it be true north?