Imported .DWG drawing of map: new Alibre dim & label text much too small

[DDoerschuk]

My work is almost all with parts measuring much less than a cubic meter. Today, however, I needed to import a .DWG Autocad plat map into Alibre. The map is of an land area measuring 350 feet east/west and 450 feet north/south. The new 2018 importing facility worked perfectly with units set to feet and inches. From within the Alibre 2D editor I can dimension a feature and the value shown is correct. However, the image of the dimension value (e.g. "300 ft") shown on the screen is microscopically small. To read it, you must zoom in very far. I have overridden the Dimension Text setting and put it at the maximum (72 point) and while this is an improvement, it's not really even close to enough. Similarly, labels and notes are illegibly too small.

The original plat came on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper, so that's the level of detail we're dealing with (not too much!)

I'm pretty sure that I'm doing something wrong, and that it has to do with the relatively large size of the land area depicted by the Autocad plat.

I've also tried setting the sheet scaling to something appropriate (1:400) but the scaling seems to work only when creating a 2D drawing from a 3D Alibre drawing (I think?)

Further, I've tried the recommendation to disable display scaling in high DPI settings shown in the knowledge-base article: 2D drawing dimensions, notes and text are not displaying correctly but to no avail.

I'm sorry for the long-winded description! Can someone bail me out?
Thank you!
David

 

[HaroldL]

David,
You are on the right track, it has to do with scaling the text. I recall from my AutoCAD days that you needed to scale up the dimensions and text for large drawings. Some of them needed text height set to 24 inches in order to plot out at the correct scale height for the drawing.

Try creating a custom dimension style and for the text height, do not select from the list, but key in a value of 144 or 216 or higher. See if that gets your dimensions to show.

 

[DDoerschuk]

Harold,
Thank you very much for your reply. I came from early pre-v12 AutoCAD and I recall managing the text size as you mention. Really, though, I think that after all this time we should have moved beyond this. A 12 point font should look like 12 point whether we're in the fixed space of a hard printout or the dynamical space of a video screen. The Alibre Part Editor does this, as does the Assembly Editor. To make the dimension text and labels/notes/etc. even vaguely visible I had to raise the point size to 1100. The arrows and leader lines and all are similarly broken. I had to define the dimension arrows as being 3 feet long.

I'm really hoping that this is just an error on my part, and there is a magic checkbox somewhere that will square it all away. Hope blooms eternal!

Thank you again for your interest and advice.
David

 

[DDoerschuk]

Harold,
It turns out you were dead right. I opened a ticket with Alibre and here is their response:

Alibre Design would normally produced scaled 2D drawings from an actual size 3D model.

In the absence of a 3D model, imported DWG/DXF data can be used - but it is treated as being actual size. Knowing that it is not surprising that 'normal' font sizes look very small.

If the import is very simple, you can copy/paste into a part sketch to generate a 3D model - even if just extruded to some arbitrary thickness. Scale drawings created from that would show text at sensible size.

Basically you are using Alibre Design for something outside the normal realm of mechanical design.

I don't think there is an easy answer to your issue - Alibre is not designed to handle architectural or surveying work, so its use in those areas may lead to compromises.

Sorry if that isn't what you were hoping to hear.​

So, that's the way the cookie crumbles! I think I'm going to try one of these new very inexpensive beginner architecture CAD programs and see if I can't get it going. I don't have an Autocad seat on any of my home machines, but I should be able to make do; I really do not have a great deal of work to do on the plat.

Thank you again, Harold!
David

 

[Idahoan]

You might give Draftsight a try, it is free and pretty much a carbon copy of AutoCAD.

Dave

 

[jfleming]

You might give Draftsight a try, it is free and pretty much a carbon copy of AutoCAD.

Dave

I use Alibre and Draftsight every day. Both have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the task.

 

[bigseb]

You might give Draftsight a try, it is free and pretty much a carbon copy of AutoCAD.

Dave

+1 for Draftsight

 

[DDoerschuk]

Thank you all very much for the Draftsight suggestion! I have been running it now for the last 2+ weeks, and it has done an admirable job of replacing my Autocad needs.

Terrific suggestion; thanks very much!

David