Configuring a template's coordinate system.....

[Tom Speight]

I apologize for asking what must be a pretty noob question, but I'm in need of some help.

 

The company I work for has its CAD setup on a shoestring budget (and a frayed shoestring at that). I'm using Autocad 2000 Land Desktop and Autocad 2002, and mostly do site plans for environmental studies, including orthophotos, GIS data, and GPS mapping info. The template I have to work with for LD was back-saved from Land 2006, so half the commands don't work and there's all sorts of artifacts and incompatibilities. It's a mess, it's frustrating, and it's a time drain to get a plan off the ground. Right now, with the need to save back, explode, purge, etc. it takes me most of a day to do what can be done in ten minutes with Land 2006.

 

The economy being what it is, new software is not going to happen.

 

What I would like to do is create a good clean template with state plane (Massachusetts) coordinates. The rest I can do myself, but the coordinate issue has eluded me so far.

 

Could anyone point me to a good concise summary of how to do this? I tried google, but discussions of older versions of CAD seem to have been eclipsed by newer stuff.

 

Any help would be most welcome.

[BIGAL]

Autocad works for a range something like -2^14 to +2^14 why set your drawing area ? once you zoom extents you have correct co-ords ? we use 0,0 but jobs are at MGA 257123,5757017 If you must set a size then use LIMITS and zoom "all" not exents.

[Tom Speight]

Autocad works for a range something like -2^14 to +2^14 why set your drawing area ? once you zoom extents you have correct co-ords ? we use 0,0 but jobs are at MGA 257123,5757017 If you must set a size then use LIMITS and zoom "all" not exents.

 

It's not so much a drawing area issue as it is datum issue-- some of the GIS layers published for the state of MA don't work well if you try inserting them just at 0,0-- e.g. the endangered species stuff is one layer for the whole state, and inserting everything at 0,0 doesn't line stuff up properly.

[Murph_map]

With Land Desktop use the _ADESETCRDSYS command, then set the code for the datum you need. Notice there is a number of them as my attachment shows (from version 2011)

 

[Tom Speight]

With Land Desktop use the _ADESETCRDSYS command, then set the code for the datum you need. Notice there is a number of them as my attachment shows (from version 2011)

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]34524[/ATTACH]

 

You, sir, are a lifesaver. That's exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks.

[Murph_map]

You, sir, are a lifesaver. That's exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks.

 

Glad to help.