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John · Guest

Greetings:

I export a simple line 250mm height (SCALE 1:1) from Pro/E (WF2 build
M040) to *.DWG. When I open it in AutoCAD the dimension seem to be in
inches (9.8425") even though my AutoCAD drawing units is set to mm and
the *.dtl file is set to Std_Ansi and mm. Am I missing something?

Thank you for your time and help.

Jeff Howard · Guest

John · Guest

Thank you, Jeff, for your help.

I check the page setup. It's in inches. I click on C cell under
format column, change to mm. However, when I go back to double check,
it's in inches again. Am I missing something?

David Janes · Guest

: "John" <njchen24@yahoo.com.sg> wrote
: Thank you, Jeff, for your help.
:
: I check the page setup. It's in inches. I click on C cell under
: format column, change to mm. However, when I go back to double check,
: it's in inches again. Am I missing something?

"...it's in inches again"? The drawing dimensions? The export/import to AutoCAD?
Anyway, this discussion is a little confusing. I know when people get stuck, they
try a bunch of things. And, in this case, there are several things which seem to
apply to 'units': the units setting in 'Edit>Setup>Units'; a .dtl option called
'drawing_units'; and the radio button selection of inch/metric when setting up a
drawing or format. Only the setup of units in the part is absolute ~ it applies
everywhere: drawings, formats, exports.

The 'drawing_units' option in the .dtl file is a little confusing. It is one of
those misnamed, misleading Pro/e options, leading me (at one time, anyway) to
believe that you could specify dimensioning units with it. Not so, as it nicely
lets users 'speak' in any system of units to the .dtl file. It tells the drawing
setup file how it should interpret measurements, such as, of arrows, leaders,
dimension text height, section note height, etc. So, dimension text with a value
of "3" will be interpreted as 3mm if drawing units are set to milimeters. If,
however, drawing_units is set to inches, you better have a value like .125 or .156
for that same text.

On the last point, of the significance of setting millimeters or inches for the
drawing, I'm pretty sure that all this does it tell you, in one system or another,
what the size of the sheet is. You can pick a US Customary size like A or B but
get it tranlated into mms. Likewise, pick A4 and click the Inches radio button and
get this standard ISO sheet size translated into inches. This should not have any
effect on drawing dimensions (though it would be nice if were some kind of
automatic units conversion) or of the units that get transmitted through an
export.

This leads me to believe that the problem is in your AutoCAD setup, perhaps some
built in scaling factor. Check your .drw scale factor (sorry, can't telll you
where to find it.)

David Janes

Jeff Howard · Guest

John · Guest

David:

Thank you for your detail explanation and most importantly
Drawing_units meaning. I use to believe that this control the drawing
export units and set the drawing_units to metric mm while my model is
in inches.

"...it's in inches again"? The drawing dimensions? The export/import
to AutoCAD?"

I apologize for being so vague and so confused. What I mean was the
Page setup properties units. I chose the C size and click on the mm
"radio button"; however, when I go back to page setup click on the C
size again, the inch radio button is selected instead of mm. For some
reason, page size setup to mm doesn't stay in effect.

After reading all comments and suggestion from you and Jeff, I restart
from a clean *.dtl, try Jeff's suggestion. Everything is working now
as per your advice and as I expected.

In recap:

- model units is absolute and the one I should focus on.
- drawing_units is for *.dtl variable (arrow size, text size, leader
length, etc) and convert sheet size from inch to mm & vice versa.
- pase setup doesn't do anything.

Thank you all for your valuable help

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