dr0591 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Hi Chief friends, I'm in a quandary. I have a very extensive 10,000 sf plan drawn up for a client in Canada. The plan dimensions that I worked from to draw the house are in inches, so that's what I used. But now I've received the site plan to add the terrain, and all the elevation points are in meters. Can someone advise on how to combine these two to be able to get accurate terrain? Can I somehow convert the plan default dimensions to meters, but have the house retain its correct size? Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated! Kathleen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 ask the surveyor to provide the Data in Decimal Feet , which is what Chief and probably the Builder will use anyway.... or perhaps do a separate Site(terrain) Plan in meters and copy and paste the house outline into it you can use the secondary format in your dimensions to show meters as well as feet if needed too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Kathleen, You can change the dimensions to be shown in any units from within the dbx and you can also change the defaults. This will not change the size of the model. That probably won't solve the terrain issue but at least it's a start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
country Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 The surveys here are always in metric. Almost all our residential construction is in feet and inches. Canadian, eh! In Vectorworks you just put in the numbers (ie: 6m) and it converts to feet and inches. Both can be shown in dual dimensions. If this didn't work I would have to drag out the conversion calculator. If Chief doesn't do a direct conversion it will be the calculator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcaffee Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 CA does a direct conversion. So, if you enter 33m in the dbx, then CA will automagically convert to 1299 3/16". jon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 CA does a direct conversion. So, if you enter 33m in the dbx, then CA will automagically convert to 1299 3/16". jon That has to be the Best Answer. I knew that was true for feet/inches but never tried it with imperial vs metric input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr0591 Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 This is a great answer! But how do I keep the house itself from sinking 100 feet below the terrain? How do you re-set the zero point of the ground floor to place it at 334.84 meters? Maybe this is obvious, but I don't think I've ever had to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcaffee Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 After the terrain data is imported and your perimeter is set, play with the Building Pad>Pad Elevation value get the structure where it needs to be. jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kbird1 Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 CA does a direct conversion. So, if you enter 33m in the dbx, then CA will automagically convert to 1299 3/16". jon and we have a Winner I didn't know it did that either ,always thought it was either imperial or metric per plan only , even though it displays both if needed. here Surveys are in decimal feet not Feet ( a PITA), but I've never seen one in Meters either , guess it depends on which City you have to please... I'd be surprised if the Surveyor can't convert it at the touch of a button on his equipment too though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
country Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 All of our survey are in metric and being able to do a direct conversion in CA is great news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glennw Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Have a look at Preferences...General...Unit Conversions. These are all the conversions you can do OOB. You can even create additional units if you need to - although all the included ones should cover just about any situation unless you require furlongs, chains, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LevisL Posted April 30, 2015 Share Posted April 30, 2015 Jon's method works really slick. I discovered it a while back and have been using it ever since. Kudos to Chief for this feature! I input all my site dimensions in metric into my imperial plan and then I have dimension sets for my own site plans that display both units. Then the folks on the job site don't need to convert anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshall Posted April 30, 2015 Share Posted April 30, 2015 CA does a direct conversion. So, if you enter 33m in the dbx, then CA will automagically convert to 1299 3/16". jon Thanks Jon, I did to know that. And to be clear, one must put in 5m and not 5M for it to work. The units are case sensitive. Really nice tip Jon. And of course by using secondary formatting, you can either show both imperial and metric or only metric or only imperial. Very flexible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr0591 Posted May 10, 2015 Author Share Posted May 10, 2015 Thanks, everyone. Entering the metric numbers and having them automatically convert to inches seems to have done the trick. There was some finagling with terrain holes involved to get things looking reasonable on the side with steps leading down to a sunken patio, but the client is happy and says this looks correct to him. Even after all these years, terrain is still a PITA for me and I spend way too much time getting it right. :-( Thanks for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now