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Is there a way when doing a drawing to avoid getting 1/32" or 1/16" dimensions? I have set my grid to 1/8" and the origin on a corner of whatever I am drawing. Is this an Idiosyncrasy of the software, computer age, mouse, drive, etc. or is there a setting to correct this?

In the Dimension menu, you can set your rounding precision
Dimensions/Dim. Style/Rounding/Precision

I don't use rounding as it just compounds into a lot of little issues thru the drawing. I suspect that the culprit may be the snap to the nearest point being turned on may be the culprit in the course of creating the drawing. I was just curious as to whether different computers, mice, age of hard drives may have on it. I tried setting the snapping grid to 1/8" but it did not seem to make a difference.

I'd just like if "rounding" had a higher limit. For large-scale drawing and sitework I need rounding in inches or even feet in associative dimensions. Paticularly in conceptual drawings. IIRC the upper limit is 1/8th or 1/16th-inch now?

Ted B wrote:I'd just like if "rounding" had a higher limit. For large-scale drawing and sitework I need rounding in inches or even feet in associative dimensions. Paticularly in conceptual drawings. IIRC the upper limit is 1/8th or 1/16th-inch now?

Yes, this would be really helpful!

I am pretty sure you can round to the nearest inch or foot - whatever tolerance that you want.

Opps Neil is right, we can set it at the drawing level to whatever we like. I have mine at 1/16". What I would like is a when using Unit Lock, with Arch, being able to set rounding to levels other than 32nd - 256ths.

Using rounding for me is not an option. I have found especially with structures with steel rounded dimensions can lead to mistakes from one end of the building to the other especially with odd plans. I figured out that I need to set my grid to the minimum of 1/8" and set the origin/reference on one corner of the structure. Thank you for all your replies.

Gary, the best I know of to avoid oddball fractions - is the type in every important distance as you draw it. This saves a ton of time, in the end.

Neil Blanchard wrote:Gary, the best I know of to avoid oddball fractions - is the type in every important distance as you draw it. This saves a ton of time, in the end.

This sounds like the 'creep' in dimensioning we sometimes get with metric - fractions of a millimetre added to a whole number, but over a series of running dimensions can add a mm or two here and there and result in the overall not always matching the sum total of the running total dims. The same applies to straight walls and lines that can later show as being a fraction of a degree off straight.

I've found this happens even when you type in the dimensions and angle (which I always do). I've reported it to Tech Support but no one has been able to figure out where it comes from or when it happens. It's very frustrating!

Well, when you pick the midpoint on some lines, you will inevitably get fractions between 1/4" increments. But by typing in dims (I use Dir Dis so I only have to type the distance) you can usually avoid 99% of the oddball dims.

Gary24752 wrote:I don't use rounding as it just compounds into a lot of little issues thru the drawing. I suspect that the culprit may be the snap to the nearest point being turned on may be the culprit in the course of creating the drawing.

I think you're dead right about the first, and probably right about the second. Endpoint and intersection should do for just about anything, and the more snap options you have on just means the more chances you have for coming to grief. I can understand people using midpoint, but I never have. In the "etc" department, I believe a poor video card can cause bad snapping, and I guess that leads to slack-arsed dimensioning.

I never use rounding. I have found errors with the accumulative dimension adding up to more than the overall dimension. I usually only dimension to 1/8", but when doing commercial buildings with 3 5/8" metal studs, you will sometimes get a 1/16" dimension.

I also spend the time to stretch the drawing to the required dimensions. This can also avoid conflicts down the road. Just like I never manually change the dimension.