Autodesk 00128-051462-9310 - AUTOCAD 2008 COMM UPG FRM 2005 DVD, User Manual

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If you are unfamiliar with the display system or layer management, you may want to read more in “ Display System ”
on page 443 and “ Managing Drawing Layers ” on page 404 before specifying the layering and display options.
Specifying the Drawing Units
Use this procedure to specify the drawing units in a new or existing drawing. If you change the drawing units, you can
specify whether existing objects in the drawing are scaled to the new units or retain their original size. You can also
specify whether objects inserted from a drawing that uses different units are scaled to the units in the current drawing,
or retain their original size.
You can specify the unit type and precision for linear, angular, area, and volume units. The precision values specify
only the number of decimal places displayed in the interface. They do not determine the number of decimal places
used in the software to make calculations.
When you change the drawing units, the default options under Area and Volume change to reflect the new drawing
units. The drawing scale options on the Scale tab also change to reflect the new drawing units.
1 In the Drawing Window status bar, click .
2 Click Drawing Setup.
NOTE Alternatively, you can choose Drawing Setup from the Format menu.
3 Click the Units tab.
4 Under Drawing Units, select the desired units.
Various imperial and metric units are available. The units that you select determine the unit of measurement
that each unit in your drawing represents. For example, if you select Inches, each drawing unit equals one
inch.
5 To scale objects that you insert into the current drawing from drawings with different drawing units, select
Scale Objects Inserted from Other Drawings.
Clear this option to insert objects at their original size without scaling. For example, if an item that is one
inch long were inserted into a drawing set to millimeters, this setting would scale the item to 25.4 mm in
length when enabled. With this setting disabled, it would remain one unit long, (which would now be
only one millimeter rather than one inch).
6 Under Length, select a unit type and desired precision.
7 Under Angle, select an angle type and desired precision.
If you want to measure angles clockwise instead of counterclockwise, select Clockwise.
8 Under Base Angle, enter a value for the default 0 angle direction. The default is 0 degrees (East) and a
counter-clockwise direction.
Imported survey drawings may include drafting instructions where changing the base angle might be
desirable to properly orient the data.
The following values match these directions:
Direction Value
East 0
North 90
West 180
South 270
9 Under Area, select an area type and precision.
If you do not want to use the default suffix that is displayed for the drawing units that you specify, enter
a new suffix.
10 Under Volume, select a volume type and precision.
110 | Chapter 4 Creating and Saving Drawings