Unitless Drawing - Converting to Imperial or Metric?

[ponyboy]

Hi Everyone,

I received a CAD drawing from an architect and the drawing does not appear to be metric or imperial. When I check line lengths I get very odd numbers...
When I open up the drawing units window, length & angle is set to decimal and insertion is set to unitless. I'm also unable to print the drawing to scale either.

Opening file in AutoCad 2016.

 

I have never received a file like this and I'm at a loss as what to do in order to convert it. Please help!

Thanks! 

Edited October 7, 2018 by ponyboy

[BIGAL]

What does some known distance of say a door show ? Does it make any sense ? Did you insert the dwg a problem is that a metric dwg inserted into a feet dwg can do some screwy things its a factor of 1/0.3048 a foot to 1 metre.

[SLW210]

Try https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-architecture/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/AutoCAD-Architecture/files/GUID-652DA67D-C364-43C6-A71D-FD1E676A0374-htm.html

[rkmcswain]

Did you insert or xref the drawing into another one?

Are there no dimensions in the drawing that you can compare to actual measurements?

Did you ask the drawing author?

[RobDraw]

19 hours ago, ponyboy said:

When I check line lengths I get very odd numbers...

 

 

 

This is the key to the solution. A "very odd" number compared to a known length will tell you how to proceed.

 

Have you changed the units and see if the numbers make sense?

[ponyboy]

16 hours ago, BIGAL said:

What does some known distance of say a door show ? Does it make any sense ? Did you insert the dwg a problem is that a metric dwg inserted into a feet dwg can do some screwy things its a factor of 1/0.3048 a foot to 1 metre.

The door is reading as 6.48 - that's an example of the odd numbers I mentioned. 
I just opened up the original CAD file.

 

8 hours ago, SLW210 said:

Try https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-architecture/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/AutoCAD-Architecture/files/GUID-652DA67D-C364-43C6-A71D-FD1E676A0374-htm.html

I will try this. Thank you.

7 hours ago, rkmcswain said:

Did you insert or xref the drawing into another one?

Are there no dimensions in the drawing that you can compare to actual measurements?

Did you ask the drawing author?

I did not insert.
I know that the counter depth is about 24 - 26 inches - the line reads as 5.2
I did not ask the drawing author because I don't know if this is an obvious fix and prefer not to look incompetent. Also I want to figure this out myself...and by myself I mean you guys to help me lol.

 

7 hours ago, RobDraw said:

 

This is the key to the solution. A "very odd" number compared to a known length will tell you how to proceed.

 

Have you changed the units and see if the numbers make sense?

I have changed the units and the lines still read the same.

 

 

I am happy to send the cad file if anyone is up for the challenge. 
 

 

 

[rkmcswain]

Attach the file, or if you can't share the file, erase everything except for a few oddball items, and save a copy and post that.

[ponyboy]

1 hour ago, rkmcswain said:

Attach the file, or if you can't share the file, erase everything except for a few oddball items, and save a copy and post that.

 

 

Thank you!

AbhishekResidentCondo - October 10 2018- File 01.dwg

[RobDraw]

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 12:22 PM, ponyboy said:

I have never received a file like this and I'm at a loss as what to do in order to convert it. Please help!

 

Okay, no one else has actually stated it and I would like to make sure you are seeing the elephant in the room.

 

If you are at a loss as to how to get the units to their original format, assign the units to it that are appropriate for that type of drawing. You can then take a known measurement, a lot of people use a standard door opening but it would probably be more precise to find something longer. You can then scale the entire drawing using the reference option of the scale command.

 

Good luck!

[rkmcswain]

I noticed that several of the blocks were set to 0.4 scale.

So if you scale the entire drawing up by 10/4 to get the blocks to 1.0 scale, a lot of the doors now measure 17.2

So you know that is not inches, or feet, or yards, and no factor of this (1720mm, 172cm, 17.2dm, or 1.72m) would equal anything close to an interior door size.

 

Anyone else got any ideas?

 

[BIGAL]

My $0.05 worth scale it 0.1 and its metres but I would still like to have at least one dimension confirmed scale up to mm but some of the wall thickness are odd at least a door is now 688mm

[ponyboy]

Scaling only will work if I have a trusted reference number for a certain line and I don't have that. 

I'm puzzled as to how and why a drawing can be drawn or saved this way and that there doesn't seem to be a way to reverse engineer the problem. 

 

I guess I will ask the architects to re-save the file in metric or imperial and send.

[eldon]

It would appear that the original drawing was done in a metric unit, the system variable MEASUREMENT being 1, and the concrete hatching is from the metric file.

 

But what then?? The lengths are not familiar ones. Perhaps someone was being clever and scaled to some old Indian measurement unit, the hasta, dhanush, crosa, gavyuti, etc., etc. Not so useful nowadays. Please post the feedback, when you eventually discover. Thank you.

[RobDraw]

8 hours ago, ponyboy said:

Scaling only will work if I have a trusted reference number for a certain line and I don't have that. 

 

 

I'm not sure how it is possible that there isn't one thing in that drawing with a known measurement. When it seems like there is nothing, you can try to find a standard door, 3'-0". Yeah, it's possible there won't be one but there has to be some sort of usable reference in the file.

 

I do agree that you should receive a usable file and if the originating party sent you that is available, they should be given 200 lashes with a wet noodle for sending you a file that was deliberately sabotaged in an attempt to make it unusable.

[steven-g]

If you resize the whole thing so that the kitchen cabinet doors are 610mm then everything else looks to make more sense. Which is a scale factor of exactly 125 

[eldon]

15 hours ago, steven-g said:

If you resize the whole thing so that the kitchen cabinet doors are 610mm then everything else looks to make more sense. Which is a scale factor of exactly 125 

 

How very percipient of you.

 

As a further feature, if one plots that drawing on an A4 at 1 to 1, one can use a 1 to 125 imperial scale rule to measure the size of the apartments in feet - very handy for developers advertising new build for sale. 

[ponyboy]

On 10/9/2018 at 11:37 AM, steven-g said:

If you resize the whole thing so that the kitchen cabinet doors are 610mm then everything else looks to make more sense. Which is a scale factor of exactly 125 

Yes this totally worked!!
I had them send me a corrected file just to be certain and compare.
Thanks!

 

 

On 10/10/2018 at 3:27 AM, eldon said:

 

How very percipient of you.

 

As a further feature, if one plots that drawing on an A4 at 1 to 1, one can use a 1 to 125 imperial scale rule to measure the size of the apartments in feet - very handy for developers advertising new build for sale. 

Very cool, did not know that.



For your amusement this was the response when I requested the correct drawing:
"Apologies. Something must have been omitted when the file was extracted, we have revised the file now, please see attached for your usage."


Thanks for everyone's help!

[Cad64]

44 minutes ago, ponyboy said:

For your amusement this was the response when I requested the correct drawing:

"Apologies. Something must have been omitted when the file was extracted, we have revised the file now, please see attached for your usage."

 

Something was omitted when the file was extracted? What does that even mean???

Oh well, at least you now have a corrected file for your "usage".

[BIGAL]

To quote homer duooh 1/125 is that not 1/8" which would mean in feet.

[steven-g]

@BIGAL not quite 1/8":1' would be nearer to 1:100, nearer but not exact (1:96)