Electrical Design Software | Elecdes Design Suite by Scada Systems Ltd

Plotting and Dimensioning

General

The Paperspace/Modelspace concept introduces a new drawing scale and plotting procedure.

In previous AutoCAD versions the drawing limits were defined to fit the real world drawing area and the border had to be scaled up to surround these limits, then at plot time, the entire drawing was scaled back down to suit the required output paper size.

In current versions of AutoCAD the border is inserted in paperspace, so it is always drawn to real drawing sheet units so it can always be plotted at 1=1 scale. Each model view can be scaled relative to paperspace units using the ZOOM XP command.

E.g., when working in a Modelview, type ZOOM (enter) 0.5xp (enter) to scale the current view to half the paperspace scale.

The border and its attached attributes and text are the only entities which should be drawn in paperspace.

Although some manuals recommend drawing dimensions in paperspace, this is only suitable when the model is complete as paperspace based dimensions cannot be associative and require manual updating if the model or viewing of the model is changed.

For a reference of the dimensioning commands, see the AutoCAD on-line documentation.

Tips

  • We recommend dimensioning only in MODELSPACE and only in ORTHOGONAL views.

  • Plotting of a border and all contained model views requires you to enter PAPERSPACE with the PSPACE command.

  • To make a model view execute a HIDE when plotting, type MVIEW, then H to set the Hideplot option, then select the model view to execute a HIDE when plotting.

  • When plotting several model views from paperspace, you may require certain layers to be thawed or frozen in different modelviews. See the AutoCAD help if you are unsure how to do this.