Unit conversions ACAD2000

[10Gallen]

Hi all,
I'm using Autocad 2000 on WinXP, and have a question regarding unit conversion. I'm redrawing an old site plan, only available as a scrappy A3 printout, with all layouts and details including co-ordinates in feet & inches. Can I set the model space to Imperial units, recreate the file then convert to metric? It would be excellent if the co-ordinate system followed suit.
I didn't think scaling would work, as the drawing settings would till be the same, and I would like to be able to punch in 6.5 to represent 6'5", so I don't have to convert every single line manually.
Any advice appreciated,
GAllen

 

[CADaver]

If you place the coordinates as ORDINATE DIMENSIONS, set the DIMLFAC to 25.4 and DIMUNITS to 2

DDIM->Primary Units->Measurement Scale->Scale Factor->25.4

DDIM->Primary Units->Unit Format->Decimal

Then update the coords. and dimens and they will display metric equivalents of the ft/in distances.

 

[10Gallen]

Thanks for replying,
Does this allow me to draw a line at say 100.5 which is 100' 5" long? The workaround appears to be ultimately a scale approach, which will rely on inputting a converted distance, e.g 100' 5" = input 100.4167.
My old HP11c allows me to change for example, input of angle bearings. 35.3045 = 35deg 30min 45sec, instead of having to to the conversion to 35.5125.
This would allow me to draw the existing site up very quickly, then the conversion to metric appears to be a question of scaling.
cheers,
GAllen

 

[diamondjim]

What is wrong with decimal angles?
Our programmers prefer this.

I'm thinking you could scale 12 times to get
inches and then scale 25.4 times to get metric.
You would have to change text height parameters
and arrows head lengths parameters to agree with
the metric units and then plot 1/304.8 ??????

 

[10Gallen]

Ahh, thats just the point! I figured scaling from imperial to metric would be the easiest way to arrive at my final model space elements, then dimension and text the 'metric-ised' layout. I like to do all my text in paperspace.
The crux of the problem lies in determining a way to input elements for which I have dimensions in feet/inches from the old plot, so that a) I dont have to do a decimal conversion feet/inces to feet.decimal inches; and b) if I was going to do the decimal conversion manually for every element, I might as well convert to metric anyway.
But it will take AGES!
Surely there is a way...

 

[IFRs]

You can directly input in Imperial units, like this:

Line
0,0
@6'5-1/2,0

etc.

First you have to set your units to Architectural. Use DDUnits to do that.

 

[CADaver]

key-in entry for feet and inch use delimiters, ' the separate feet from inches and - to separate inches from fractions. So thrre feet nine and five sixteenths looks like 3'9-5/16 (inch mark not req'd)

Angles use d to separate degrees, ' for minutes, and " for seconds. So an angle key-in looks like 35d45'23"

A line from an endpoint looks like:

Command: line
Specify first point: _endp of
Specify next point or [Undo]: @3'5-23/32<35d23'41&quot;

the @ means &quot;use the last point&quot; and the < means the following is an angle.

 

[10Gallen]

Perfect! Thanks to all.
GAllen