Topic: Converting a metric dwg to imperial

[David Hall]

Is there a way to easily convert a dwg based on mm to inches?  I know I can scale the drawing based on the 1:25.4 scale factor, but this does not change the ltscale for each entity in the drawing.  If I scale the dwg only, I have to set my LTScale to 0.1 to even begin to see linetypes.  This doesn't work, because any new lines I draw are either to tiny or to large w/ regard to ltscale.

My thought is if there isn't any easy way, I will have to create a function to recreate every entity and erase the original.  NOT FUN

[Dinosaur]

Can you select all entities and change their ltscale to 1 in the properties window?  You may have to do each object group individually if ltscale is not a changeable property for some but still should go quickly.

[David Hall]

yes, and no
they already are set to 1.  I would need to set them to 0.0393 (roughly 1/25.4) to make them view correctly.  My BIG fear is that my users wont / cant figure out what to do. (Most of them have <5 years experience)

[David Hall]

If the above setting gets set on new linework, it would appear too small, or unviewable at all

[Keith™]

Well, lets see ...

You mentioned scaling the drawing

this has its advantages, it is quick and painless
and its disadvantages, the linetype scales for items are screwed up

So, the bottom line is that to utilize this way, you will need to physically change the linetype scale of each entity. This is fine except that blocks will have to be refedited and will be difficult to manage.

Another option is to simply change the dimension scaling, but you will then need to draw everything 1/25.4 of the actual size.

I dunno .. a lisp could work wonders, changing the items in the properties dialog would work ...

[Keith™]

Hold on a minute ... if your current linetype must be set to 1 in an effort to make the lines show properly, and the drawing lines are set to 1 but they don't show correctly, then I think you can create a new drawing with the linetypes as they "should" be, and simply copy and paste the other drawing into the new one. I think it has something to do with the scale of the linetype definition and not the scale of the linetype.

[David Hall]

Let me try that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Keith™]

I just tried it and it works properly, you will of course need to make sure all of the defined linetypes in drawing1 are defined in drawing2, and you will need to have already scaled the drawing when you insert it into the new drawing.

[Greg B]

Remind me why linetype scale determines a drawing looks....

[CADaver]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to change the DIMLFAC to 25.4 and DIMUNIT to decimal then update the dims??

Oops other way round, change DIMLFAC to 10/254 and the DIMUNITS to Archie.

[David Hall]

It works perfectly!!! thanks Keith

[David Hall]

Remind me why linetype scale determines a drawing looks....

the ltscale determines how much space is applied to the linetype definition. so if the definition says .5 line & .25 space a ltscale of 1.0 prints .5/.25    A ltscale of 2 would print 1.0/.5 space

[Crank]

imperial : use ACAD.lin
metric  : use ACADISO.lin

So all you have to do is reload the linetypes of the rigth .lin file.

For custom linetypes this doesn't work, so then I suggest changing the LTSCALE.