Importing a Survey

[Guest]

I'm having major difficulty with the Survey I'm trying to import. It always comes in at a microscopic scale. I've tried setting the import paper space to 1:1, but it has no effect. I've also played with importing the survey in inches and in feet, but again, no effect on the result. Suggestions?

[Guest]

Is it a survey text file or a dxf/dwg file?

[Guest]

it is a dwg. file

[Stuart Gray]

Have you checked that the survey isn't a symbol?

[Guest]

the survey is not a symbol. Someone told me I needed to import it and then scale up by 12, because Surveyors draw in inches. It didn't work. Someone else mentioned that the survey is drawn 1:1 in Autocad and lacks a scale? But then don't I simply apply a scale when I import it or set the layer to whatever scale I need.

[Petri]

There may be a very simple solution: change the scale of the layer. Have you checked the measurements of the imported survey?

The survey is very likely to be done in 1:1 scale, but with what units, that you have to ask. AutoCAD does not have scales at all in modelspace (and no explicit units anywhere); theoretically (and sometimes in practice) it is possible to draw in paperspace by scaling everything you draw as you would be on tracing paper, but this is not common practice.

[matto]

We have a similar problem all the time with Survey's, thou i'm not sure how it would apply in imperial, as we use metric.

if we use our normal default unit of

1 unit = 1millimeter

the drawing comes in micro sized

if we set 1 unit = 1 metre

in comes in normal sized and with the right line wieghts

you might need to try 1unit = 1 feet or a yard

to see what works

[Guest]

Mystery solved. The drawing was done in 1:1 scale (Autocad) and so requires that I blow it up x12 or change the units when I import. This worked great. From what I've been told this is standard for surveyors. Thanks for everyone's help.