Jump to content
  • 0

Landscape designer


Troy Francis

Question

Hi guys,

 

A simple or maybe stupid question. I get a lot of our larger gardens surveyed and measured by a professional company and they simply send across the DWG's to myself. When on site I usually measure a fixed part of the house so when the DWG's turn up I use the 'Scale' bar on the Vectorworks programme and scale the drawing up. Is there a simpler way to do this when I receive a DWG from the company with all the measurements correct when imported?

 

Thank you very much.

 

Troy.

Link to comment

3 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

When I hire a surveyor (often!) I always have them locate the house corners on the survey. Then I use their survey (imported .dwg file) as a base for my drawings. I always leave their work by itself in one discreet design layer and then create additional design layers for my work as needed.

 

PS: "The only stupid question is the one that was never asked" - my primary school teacher.

Link to comment
  • 0

Assuming that their DWGs are drawn and exported to scale, as long as you select the same units the drawing was made in when you import the DWG it should come in to scale.

 

Since you are in the UK, it is likely that their drawings are in meters. If you are importing into a drawing set to mm you should be off by a factor of 1000.

 

HTH

  • Like 1
Link to comment
  • 0
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Troy, 

 

The DWG will be in scale, you just need to ask your surveyor if they're using meter or millimetre. (If you don't know, just import it once with meters and measure something known, like a door width. If it's wrong, delete the import and do it again but with millimetres. This is better than scaling the whole drawing). You shouldn't have to do any changes to it - surveys are usually very accurate.

If you've already started working on your masterplan before the survey arrives, I'd recommend to draw out guidelines for door and window centres according to the DWG (Modify > Guides > Make guide) and then transfer (re-draw) your design to the 'surveyed' file - it is really hard to get things exact if you try to scale it. 

The other really important thing to remember when importing a DWG is to ensure it 'lands' close to the internal origin. The simplest way to do this (unless you have set project coordinates) is to select the first choice in the import dialogue, 'Center first import, align all subsequent imports'. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...