Scale in Paperspace viewports.

Steve Mercer

If you double click inside a paperspace viewport and zoom extents, does that change the scale of the drawing in paperspace?

Jason Bourhill

Hi Steve,

if you zoom inside a paperspace viewport you will affect your scale relative to paperspace. Zoom is actually how the scale factor is set. e.g. ZOOM 1/50xp will result in a view scale of 1:50 realtive to paperspace. Most people these days will just directly set the viewport scale by selection the viewport and then adjusting using the Property Bar. You will also see on the Property Bar that you can lock a viewport (see attached image). This will prevent you from accidentally changing your scale if you zoom inside the viewport. What will happen instead is that the zoom command will switch to paperspace, perform the zoom, and then change back to modelspace inside the viewport again. 

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

ViewPortLock-2011-11-24.png

Steve Mercer

Hi Jason

So if you change the scale of the viewport thru the property bar and the drawing does not fit, can you change it again in the property bar without messing things up?

s.

Steve Mercer

Hi Jason

So what happens when you double click inside the viewport (paperspace) and you cannot find the drawing how do you locate it  and pan to where you can see it if you cannot zoom extents without changing the scale?

s.

Jason Bourhill

Hi Steve,

what you need to do is set your view up first then set the scale. Try:

1. Enter your viewport and do a ZOOM Extents. You can use the mouse for this, try double clicking on the wheel, or middle button.
2. Once you can see your drawing ZOOM and PAN to roughly set they view to what you want to see. Again you can use the mouse for this, wheel for zoom, and hold the wheel downto pan.
3. Now that you have your view aligned set your view scale. Either use ZOOM X/XP, such as ZOOM 1/20xp for 1:20, or adjust using the property bar.
4. With the scale correct you can lock the viewport using the property bar.

If you're a new user I recommend that you don't work inside your viewport (other than for the above), but instead go explicitly into model space by picking on the model space tab. This cuts down on confusion.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Steve Mercer

Okay that is exactly the info I have been looking for Jason thanks.

one more question.  I have set attributes with a border to prompt the user for info to fill in the fields on the border sheet.  I have created a border sheet for each sheet size.  I noticed if I insert block and choose the Border file my attributes work just fine but if I save the drawing as a template (with all the borders available from the list in the insert border field) and I go to insert one of those blocks my attributes cease to function.

Also is there a way to selectively delete some of the blocks that show up in the list of blocks when you insert a block?

s.

Jason Bourhill

Hi Steve,

If you take a look at the resources section of my website you will find a sample CAD Library for Bricscad. This contains some templates that you could compare against. Otherwise attach your files on a post so we can take a look for you.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Richard Sands

Jason is there a way to know what zoom scale I'm at at any given time?  Whilst the viewport is active ie.
I didn't know you could activate a viewport and type in a scale at the command line. (I normally just zoomextents then window to where I want and set scale on property bar)
It would be nice to zoom in or zoomwindow and see what that scale is and then type the desired scale and perhaps pan about until its correctly positioned.

Jason Bourhill

Hi Richard,

I'm not aware of a feature like this being available. Maybe someone else has seen a routine that would offer this. Changing back to paperspace and then selecting the viewport will show the scale in the custom scale, which will give you the current scale.

I guess a lot of people would use templates that have the viewport scale already set, and work to set scale factors for different drawing and view types.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Richard Sands

thanks Jason
my work (dwg) is different each time and can cover areas anywhere from 50 x 20 metres to 2km x 2 km or greater, so I just take the (for me) easy way and zoom extents and then see what fits my standard plan forms.
I imagined a ZOOM? or something simple.

regards
Richard