Importing autocad in millimetres
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Is there a way to import an Autocad drawing in millimetres so that the dimensions stay the same? Sketchup seems to think the dimensions are in inches. If I change to "architectural" I get an equivalent number but the numbers below 1 are expressed as fractions.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
twynog
Wales, UK -
Hi Richard,
On import,there's the Options button at the bottom right of the file browser window. There you should always set the units of the original CAD file as SU can't read the units from the file itself.
Your settings will be "remembered" by SU however so if you regularly import files in mm's, you are lucky.
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AutoCAD files (DWG and DXF) are written in raw 'units' - if mm is used in the dims etc it's an 'overlaid' thing. If you work in m, cm, mm, feet or inches it doesn't matter - since it's all internally consistent. In the UK architects work in mm but surveyors in m - thus you'll have to scale up all site surveys by x1000 !
As Gaieus says you need to tell SUp what units the imported file had assumed under Options. In your case mm. The default is inches - thus your problem. It's also a good idea to ignore the CAD origin as SUp falls over if geometry is miles from the origin.
In passing - you could also change the normal/default template you use to a mm metric one. That way whenever you start a new model its units will be set to suit... Open an empty file and set it up as you want and save it into the templates folder. I have my units, dim/style, text/font, location/north, layers, scenes, styles etc all set up so it's one less thing to think about while modelling...
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