Scale from design to sheet layers

[deadtomorrow]

I'm getting confused about scale (as I usually am!) Please can I check what I am doing is the correct, or most common, way? 

 

At the moment I have the design layers all set to 1:50 and import surveys and maps at this scale. So in design, an imported survey is much bigger than the sheet of A3 paper shown on screen, for instance.

 

Then, when I send a viewport to a sheet layer, the full site is bigger than the printable A3 sheet, so I resize the viewport as an object to a scale of say, 1:1000 to get the full design to fit onto an A3 sheet. Or I could change the size of the printable sheet to fit more on at the original scale. 

 

Is that the correct way or doing it? 

Edited September 13, 2023 by deadtomorrow

[bcd]

If you place a Dimension on the Design Layer does it read the correct measurement?

If not the survey is being re-scaled on import - and therein lies the solution.

[deadtomorrow]

Just now, bcd said:

If you place a Dimension on the Design Layer does it read the correct measurement?

If not the survey is being re-scaled on import - and therein lies the solution.

Yes, it's correct in the design layer. E.g. 20m = 20,000mm. 

[bcd]

A3 = 420mm wide @ 1:50 will only fit a 21m wide site.

If your site is >21m you will need to choose a larger Paper Size or smaller scale to fit

[Tom W.]

22 minutes ago, deadtomorrow said:

Or I could change the size of the printable sheet to fit more on at the original scale. 

 

Yes you can set your sheets to whatever size you want. Are you actually physically printing them? 

 

 

I personally would ignore the page boundary on the design layer (hide it) unless you are doing a lot of 2D + adding page based graphics on the design layer + need to know how things are going to look on your sheets as you draw them.

 

[line-weight]

31 minutes ago, deadtomorrow said:

 

Is that the correct way or doing it? 

Yes.

 

Remember design layers don't really have a scale - it's confusing the way VW talks about them having a scale. When VW talks about the scale of a design layer it's more to do with a preview of how certain things (that only exist in the context of a sheet layer) look. Such as paper size or line thickness.

[deadtomorrow]

Thanks both, that's reassuring. I felt like I was getting muddled up but it makes sense now, thank you. 

[Pat Stanford]

On Design Layer, "Scale" is actually just a kind of preset Zoom.  

 

The standard VW recommended workflow is to use a Design Layer scale that is similar to what the majority of your output is going to be. That way you can use line weights and text and marker sizes that are the correct sizes rather than having to use a huge or tiny font size to appear correct on your output.

 

It does not work on everything is most of your output is 1:50, but some if 1:1000 and some it 1:4, but at least it can get you closer.