With QuickCalc AutoCAD Calculator command you can measure the length of geometry, its angle and coordinate points like midpoint or centroid. You can perform complex calculations using the scientific calculator and It can also be used to convert units of length, angle, area, and volume. In previous versions of autocad after I select a line, and put the mouse pointer over a vertex, there would be an on screen number displaying the length of the line. In Autocad 2013 this seems to have disappeared. How to get it back? View 2 Replies View Related AutoCad:: Automatic Measurement Of Length Of Line Sep 5, 2013.
The easiest way to change the location of dimension parts in AutoCAD is to use grip editing. Just click a dimension, click one of its grips, and maneuver away. You’ll discover that certain grips control certain directions of movement. Selecting a dimension displays grips generally at the text, the ends of the dimension lines, and the defpoints.
In AutoCAD 2012, dimensions joined the group of objects that feature multifunction grips. Click the text grip on a linear dimension and use the grip menu to adjust the text location. Click an arrow grip, and you can create a continuous or baseline dimension from that end of the dimension, or you can flip the arrow. You can do these things by selecting a dimension and changing items in the Properties palette, but the multifunction grips are more efficient.
If you want to change the look of a component of a specific, individual dimension (for example, substitute a different arrowhead or suppress an extension line), use the Properties palette. All dimension settings in the New/Modify Dimension Style dialog boxes are available from the Properties palette when you select one or more dimensions.
Use smart breaks. In manual drafting, it’s considered bad form to cross object lines (that is, real geometry) with dimension lines or extension lines, or to have anything cross a dimension line. Dimension Break (DIMBREAK) prompts you to select a dimension and then an object to break it. The wild aspect is that it’s a smart break. If you do anything to the dimension or to the object being broken to change where they cross, the break follows accordingly — and if you change either item so that they no longer cross, the break heals itself. Better yet, if you change things again so that they cross again, the break reappears!
Use the DIMSPACE command. The Dimension Space (DIMSPACE) command applies a specified separation between existing linear or angular dimensions. If you don’t use the DimBAseline command as the dimensions are created, spacing dimensions equally afterwards will require tedious manipulation with Snap Mode and the Move command.
You don’t always have to draw everything at full size. A fundamental mantra in AutoCAD is that you should always draw everything at full size. On occasion, however, it isn’t always practical. For example, you may design a power-transmission shaft for a large machine. The shaft is 4 inches in diameter and 12 feet long. It has a variety of splines, keyways, and bearing shoulders on each end, but the 11-foot section in the middle is simply a straight cylinder. If you draw it at full size and scale the plot to fit a suitable paper size, you’ll never see the details at each end.
Common practice would be to draw the interesting end details, break out and remove the boring center section, and then bring the ends closer together. Now you can create a reasonable plot. The problem is that any dimension that crosses over the break, such as the overall length, doesn’t show the correct value. The solution is to override the value, and then to use the DIMJOGLINE command to insert a jog in the dimension line to indicate that the dimension line isn’t the true length.
In spite of the name similarities, don’t confuse DIMJOGLINE with the DimJOgged command. DIMJOGLINE is for linear dimensions, and DimJOgged is for radial dimensions.
Right-click for useful options. If you select one or more dimensions and right-click, the menu displays a number of useful options for overriding dimension settings or assigning a different style.
Sometimes, it’s better to create a new style. When you change a setting in the Properties palette, you’re overriding the default style setting for that dimension. If you need to make the same change to a bunch of dimensions, it’s usually better to create a new dimension style and assign that style to them. You can use the Properties palette or the right-click menu to change the dimension style that’s assigned to one or more dimensions.
![Length Length](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125854662/380871932.jpg)
If you manually change a dimvar setting, the setting is applied to the current dimension style as an override, and all subsequent dimensions that are placed by using this style have the overridden appearance. This can cause much the same problem as overriding object properties instead of using different layers; if you edit a dimension style, all existing dimensions that use it update, including the ones that you hadn’t expected because they seem to be different from the ones you want.
Use a mask for the dimension text. You can use the Properties palette to turn on AutoCAD’s background mask feature for the text of individual dimensions: Select the dimensions, display the Text area in the Properties palette, and find the Fill Color item. Click in the list box, scroll down, and select Background to use the drawing background color, which usually gives the best results. To ensure that dimension text lies on top of other objects, use the TEXTTOFRONT or DRAWORDER commands.
Don’t explode dimensions. The AutoCAD eXplode command on the Home tab’s Modify panel blows a dimension to smithereens — or at least into a bunch of line and multiline text objects. Resist the temptation. Exploding a dimension makes it much harder to edit cleanly and eliminates AutoCAD’s ability to update the dimension text measurement automatically.
At some point, you will need to add dimensions to your AutoCAD drawing. Start off with this exercise to introduce AutoCAD’s dimensioning functionality by creating linear dimensions that show the horizontal or vertical distance between two endpoints:
- Start a new drawing, using the acad.dwt template file.This step creates a drawing that uses imperial units, even if your default installation uses metric. It saves lazy writers from having to duplicate our instructions for metric users.
- Use the Line command to draw a non-orthogonal line.Anon-orthogonal line is a segment that’s neither horizontal nor vertical. Make the line about 6 units long, at an angle of about 30 degrees upward to the right.
- Set a layer that’s appropriate for dimensions as current.Okay, you started from a blank template, so it doesn’t have specific layers, but here is a gentle reminder. You normally have dedicated layers for visible edges, hidden edges, text, dimensions, section lines, hatching, and so on.
- Start the DimLInear command by clicking the down arrow at the bottom of the Dimension button on the left side of the Annotate tab’s Dimensions panel and click Linear, or type DLI and press Enter.AutoCAD prompts you:
- To specify the origin of the first extension line, snap to the lower-left endpoint of the line by using an ENDpoint object snap.If you don’t have ENDpoint as one of your current running object snaps, specify a single endpoint object snap by holding down the Shift key, right-clicking, and choosing ENDpoint from the menu that appears.AutoCAD prompts you:You must use object snaps when applying dimensions in order to make later editing work properly.
- To specify the origin of the second extension line, snap to the other endpoint of the line by using an ENDpoint object snap again.AutoCAD draws a horizontal dimension (the length of the displacement in the left-to-right direction) if you move the crosshairs above or below the line. It draws a vertical dimension (the length of the displacement in the up-and-down direction) if you move the crosshairs to the left or right of the line.AutoCAD prompts you:
- Move the mouse to generate the type of dimension you want — horizontal or vertical — and then click wherever you want to place the dimension line.AutoCAD draws the dimension.When you’re specifying the dimension line location, you usually don’t want to object-snap to existing objects. Rather, you want the dimension line and text to sit in a relatively empty part of the drawing rather than have it bump into existing objects. If necessary, temporarily turn off running object snap (for example, click the OSNAP button on the status bar) to avoid snapping the dimension line to an existing object.If you want to be able to align subsequent dimension lines easily, turn on Snap mode and set a suitable snap spacing (more easily done than said!) before you pick the point that determines the location of the dimension line. You can also use the DIMSPACE command to select several existing dimensions and then automatically space them equally.
- Repeat Steps 4–7 to create another linear dimension of the opposite orientation (vertical or horizontal).
- Click the line to select it.
- Click one of the grips at an end of the line and drag it around.The dimensions automatically update, live and in real time, to reflect the current values as you move the mouse.
You probably don’t dimension to four decimal places, use a different font for text, use imperial and metric units, or need to show manufacturing tolerances. Not a problem. AutoCAD controls the look of dimensions by means of dimension styles, just as it controls the look of text with text styles and tables with table styles.
In fact, AutoCAD also uses text styles to control the appearance of the text in dimensions. AutoCAD has about 80 variables that can be used to warp dimensions into just about any perversion that your industry or company can imagine.