Drawing Setup

This command allows you to specify drawing parameters, including the plotting scale, size of symbols, label annotation size, and the angle mode.

• Specify English 1in=?ft or Metric 1m=?m as the unit mode to use. This affects the prompting and reports. When you are working on a drawing in English units, one unit equals one foot. In metric, one unit equals one meter.
• Specify the Horizontal Scale of the drawing. For example, if the horizontal scale is set to 50, then 1" = 50' is your drawing scale.
• The Symbol Plot Size value is a scaler that represents the size on the plot. The Drawing Units are determined by multiplying the scaler by the horizontal scale. In English mode the scaler represents the plotted size in inches. In Metric mode, this value is the plotted size in centimeters. The Drawing Units field shows the result of the Symbol Plot Size value (the scaler) multiplied by the horizontal scale.
• The Text Plot Size value is a scaler that represents the size on the plot. The Drawing Units are determined by multiplying the scaler by the horizontal scale. In English mode the scaler represents the plotted size in inches. In Metric mode, this value is the plotted size in centimeters. The Text Plot Size is not entered in Drawing Units. The Drawing Units field shows the result of the Text Plot Size value (the scaler) multiplied by the horizontal scale.
• The Line Type Scaler option sets the linetype scale by multiplying this scaler by the horizontal scale.
• Angle Mode-Bearing sets reporting to bearing mode for any of the inquiry commands. (Modifies the settings in the AutoCAD UNITS command.)
• Angle Mode-Azimuth sets reporting to north based azimuth mode for any of the inquiry commands. (Modifies the settings in the AutoCAD UNITS command.)
• Angle Mode-Gon sets reporting to gon mode for any of the inquiry commands. (Modifies the settings in the AutoCAD UNITS command.)
• Angle Mode-Other lets the user determine angle mode by using the AutoCAD UNITS command.
• Coordinate System is an optional setting to define the drawing coordinate system. The coordinate system settings are used in commands like List Points and Label Lat/Lon to report geodetic coordinates from the drawing coordinates. The Grid System setting applies to drawing coordinates that are in a grid projection system such as state plane coordinates. The Projection list selects the grid projection from the list of supported projections. Along with the Projection, there are selections for the zone and datum to use with the projection. When the drawing setup is in English mode, there is a projection setting for whether the feet are in US Feet or International Feet units. The Local System setting applies to all other coordinate system beside grid projections. The Define Localization button has settings to define the transformation from local coordinates to grid coordinates. With a localization defined, you can work in a drawing in local coordinates and still report lat/lon. The localization definition contains pairs of local and grid coordinates that define the transformation. See the section on Localization under the Coordinate File Utilities command for more information.
  
• Project Scale Factor is multiplied by the x,y coordinates when converting between drawing and geodetic coordinates. 
• Base Z is used for calculating the combined scale factor for calculating geodetic areas.
  
• Projection: There are several built-in projection including State Plane 83, State Plane 27 and UTM. Also on the Projection list is an item for More Pre-Defined as well as User-Defined projections. This expanded Pre-Defined selection includes the projections used in SurvCE which has hundreds of projections including the US County projections for Iowa Regional Coordinate System, Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin (WCCS and WISCRS) as well as from around the world. When you pick Pre-Defined, a dialog shows a list of recently selected Pre-Defined projections.

• Project Name and Job Number are optional fields that are used in the header for reports.
  
• Report Distance Scale Factor is used to show distances in a second system besides the drawing units. For example, this factor can be used to report distances in meters when the drawing is in feet, or it can be used to report grid distances when the drawings is in a ground coordinate system. This factor is applied in commands that have an option to label/report a second scaled distance such as the Inverse command and Annotate Defaults that applies to the angle/distance label routines. The scale factor can be set to a single fixed value or set to go from ground to grid or from grid to ground on-the-fly. The fixed scale factor can be entered directly into the edit box or calculated using the Set button which has feet-meters conversions as well as combined scale factor calculations for grid-ground factors. See the Scale Points command for more information on calculating the combined scale factor. For the on-the-fly factor between grid and ground, the program calculates the combined scale factor for each distance using the two end points for the distance line.
  
• The Set Text Styles button creates text styles in the drawing for the current drawing Horizontal Scale with the specified Font Name and list of Style Names and Text Size Scalers. For example, when the Horizontal Scale is set to 50 and there is a Style Name of L80 with Text Size Scaler of 0.08 in the list, then this function will create a text style in the drawing called L80 with the text height of 4 (50 * 0.08).
  

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• The Set Paper button allows you to draw a rectangle on the screen that represents the edge of your paper. After you have set the horizontal scale, press the Set Paper button and the Set Paper dialog appears.
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  • The Layout option lets you specify landscape or portrait paper orientation. Landscape layout is where the width of the page is greater than the height of the page. Portrait layout is the opposite.
  • The Paper Size option allows you to specify the paper size. The numbers in parenthesis represent drawing units and will be multiplied by the horizontal scale to determine the rectangle to be drawn. If you select the Other option, you will be prompted on the command line for the horizontal and vertical sizes of the paper.

Prompts (for Set Paper)

Pick or Type lower left corner point for border <(5000.00 5000.00 0.0)>: pick a point
Erase existing Set Paper boundary [<Yes>/No]? Y This prompt only appears if there is an existing paper boundary in this drawing.
Set Limits [Yes/<No>]? Y If you answer Yes to Set Limits, drawing limits are enabled, and AutoCAD restricts the coordinates you can enter to within the paper boundary. Drawing limits also determines the area of the drawing that can display grid dots, and the minimum area displayed by the Zoom All command on the View menu. To turn drawing limits off, type in LIMITS on the command line and set to Off.

Drawing Setup also sets the AutoCAD dimension scale (DIMSCALE) and linetype scale (LTSCALE) to the Horizontal Scale.

Pulldown Menu Location: Settings
Keyboard Command: setup
Prerequisite: None