Topic Title

Several colleagues and I have noticed that when we are working in site plans that, at times, several entities such as lines, arcs, and text become really skewed and distorted. Refreshing the screen helps only half of the objects on the screen, and whenever you scroll, the objects become distorted again. We have come to the conclusion that this has all started when we downloaded update 11.06.00. One of the guys in the office who hadn’t updated his Datacad has no problems working in the files. We used to alleviate the problem by turning "max acceleration" off in the "misc" tab of the configure settings. However, since the 11.06.00 update, "max acceleration" is no longer there. For some reason, this problem only occurs in site plan files. Any clue as to what’s going on?

Hello Will & welcome,

How are you refreshing the screen: with the Escape or the 'U' key? Maybe try the v11.07.00 update? Failing that, you might email a screen capture (hit the Print Screen, and then Paste in a photo editor or a paint program) to TechSupport@DataCAD.com -- there may be a setting they can help you with.

[Edit: I think John is correct: I'll bet these entities are a very long distance from Absolute Zero -- move them close to AZ, and the distortions will go away...]

I've had this one before. I think you'll find that the drawing you're working on (AutoCad or other imported drawing) is way off the origin.
Change your input to absolute, draw a line from somewhere near the center of your drawing at 0,0. The line will probably end up going bottom left a few thousand feet or meters away.
Move the whole of the drawing to the end of this line and the problem will be solved.

John

John,
I would have to agree with you. I have noticed the same thing with importing of site plans. Many surveyors use the quad points for locating the site plan on CAD, which pusses the drawing very far from absolute zero and for some reason Datacad does not like it when the drawing is far from absolute zero.

Hello Guys,

All of you are right. The extraordinary distance from the Absolute Zero point is the reason of that distortion.

Indeed this is a problem present on DataCAD because Display List engine still manages data with 'single' precision, although DataCAD 11 manages all the drawing data with double precision. The problem is only for 'showing' the result on the screen. If you make a Print Preview of this drawing, you will figure that the sheet will be showing all right.

Here below you can see an example of what I am saying. I've get a text string and put it in Absolute Zero (0-0), and copied it into several points, with distance of 110,000m among them, on X and on Y.

In the Multi_layout option inside Print/Plot menu you will see this. The text below the string indicates the absolute coordinate.



The Print Preview of the same project:



Fortunately, DATACAD LLC is developing an improvement in the Display List, using double precision, and has promised it to V12.

Indeed this kind of problem is recent, and started since the GPS devices were widely spread.
The option of "Move to Origin" is only a temporary solution, because it will change all the georreferenced coordinates.

Today a simple house project can be located with its georreferenced location in the Earth.
This means that our known as 'Absolute Zero' will be transferred to the Equatorial Circle and will be repeated by each 1 degree of longitude, what means near 110km among them.

If your land is located out of the Equator you will have some distortion when try to georreference it.

So, our hope is that DATACAD can address this point right ahead.

Thanks,
Miguel