Drawing to Scale

When you draw to scale in DesignCAD, you are usually measuring the objects in a given base unit of measure. DesignCAD doesn't care whether your base unit is meters or miles or even leagues. What's important is that you use the same base unit throughout the drawing.

Let's say that you're drawing a house and the front wall is 32 feet long. To DesignCAD, it is 32 Drawing Units. You can draw a line by choosing the Line command, setting the first point (click the mouse or press Ins), then specifying that the next point is 32 Units away.

But what if the next item you measure in the same drawing is 10 centimeters tall? If you draw it at a height of 10 units, it will be much too large. Why? Because centimeters and feet are different units. In this example, you would need to convert the centimeters to feet, and then tell DesignCAD the size of the item in feet.

The key point is not to mix units. If feet are convenient, call out all distances in the drawing in feet. If centimeters are convenient, measure everything in centimeters. As long as you're consistent, all is well. If you use feet, many of the commands allow you to enter distances in feet and inches: for example, to specify a line 9 feet 5 inches long, set the first point, then enter 9'5" in the DX field of the Point Relative command.