Scaling blocks and texts ?

Julien Rouiller

Hi,

My drawing file has several layouts that are set at different scales.

Texts such as street names, as well as blocks like map grid reticles were inserted in object space.

Texts and blocks were inserted so that they display correctly at the scale of my first layout, which is 1:25'000.
I'm wondering if there is a way to scale these elements "on the fly" so that they display correctly in my second layout at 1:10'000.

I heard about scaling of dimensions, but my texts are intrinsically not "dimensions". 
Should I have created them as dimensions even if they're not?

Concerning the blocks (grid reticles and tramway stations) my intuition was creating them in object space as they are "real world" elements.

From what I heard, some people prefer create blocks in the layout tabs. Others create one layer per scale in object space.
A priori, this sounds to me quite the same amount of work since it means in both cases one layer per scale and per element type. (I mean if one wants to do things well.) Isn't it?

So, is there some simpler technique for scaling texts and blocks?

I also wonder if it is possible to hide some element in one layout only without using a special layer (e.g. hiding a street name which is not totally displayed in one of the layouts.)

Many thanks for your help.

 

 

 

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Julien, you seem to be referring to the AutoCad mechanism of annotive scale. To my knowledge this is still on the Bricscad wish-list.

You can change the scale of dimensions on the fly by changing the "Dim scale overall" of the dim style. Provided your dimensions don't have overrides they all should change. This works, but you have to change this setting manually every time you want to plot a differently scaled layout. Putting texts and dimensions in paper space can be a good approach. It will avoid the need for a lot of per-scale-styles with corresponding layers. It will also avoid upside-down and clipped annotations. And I guess that in a 1:10.000 layout you would want to add more texts and dimensions than in a 1:25.000 layout.

Concerning the blocks...
If you want to use different layers for different plot scales, the wrong way to go about this would be to reinsert the same block with a different scale on a new layer. It is more logical to put the scale-dependant layers inside the block. In the case of a grid reticle block you would have two lines on (let's say) a layer Grid_1_25_000 and two shorter lines on a layer Grid_1_10_000. Of course the block itself would have to be inserted on a third layer.

Provided there are no norms and standards that dictate otherwise, in your situation my approach would be:
Annotation in paper space and everything else in model space.

There is a nice movie on associative dimensions in the BC Help:
Bricscad > User Guide > Creating Entities > Dimensions > Associative Dimensions

Julien Rouiller

Roy, thanks for your answer.

I was not aware of the possibility of scaled-dependent layers.This seems interesting.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

I am sorry to disappoint you, but when I say "scale-dependant layers" I don't mean anything special. It it is just a different way of saying "one layer per scale".

This unclear text in my post #2:
"It is more logical to put the scale-dependant layers inside the block."
Should be read as:
"It is more logical to put scale-dependant elements on different layers inside the block."

Julien Rouiller

Thanks for your further explanation. I chose having one layer. Luckily it is what I did. In fact, I only use two layers for the reticules : one layer per scale. The blocks are created directly into the layers they will be inserted in; then I don't need a third layer.