Drawing Units Dialog Box

Length

Type

Sets the current display format for units of measure.

The values include Architectural, Decimal, Engineering, Fractional, and Scientific. The Engineering and Architectural formats produce feet-and-inches displays and assume that each drawing unit represents one inch. The other formats can represent any real-world unit.

Precision

Sets the number of decimal places or fractional size displayed for linear measurements.

Angle

Specifies the current angle format and the precision for the current angle display.

Type

Sets the current display format for angles.

Precision

Sets the precision displayed for angles.

The following conventions are used for the various angle measures:

Decimal degrees: decimal numbers.
Grads: lower case g suffix.
Radians: lower case r suffix.
Degrees/minutes/seconds: d for degrees, ' for minutes, and " for seconds; for example, 123d45'56.7".
Surveyor's units: N or S for north or south bearings, degrees/minutes/seconds for how far east or west the angle is from direct north or south, and E or W for east or west; for example, N 45d0'0" E. The angle is always less than 90 degrees and is displayed in the degrees/minutes/seconds format. If the angle is precisely north, south, east, or west, only the single letter representing the compass point is displayed.

Clockwise

Controls whether positive angles are measured in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.

Insertion Scale

Controls the scale for blocks and drawings that are inserted into the current drawing.

If you insert a block or a drawing that is created with units that are different from the units used in the current drawing, the insertion scale value corrects the mismatch. If you do not want the block or drawing to be scaled, specify Unitless.

Note:

If the Insertion Scale is set to Unitless in either the source block or the target drawing, the Source Content Units and Target Drawing Units settings are referenced to determine the scaling ratio. These settings are located in the Options dialog, User Preferences tab.

US Survey Feet is a historical survey unit that's about 2 parts per million larger than the International Feet unit. This difference is significant only at scales used for mapping in the U.S. The US Survey Feet setting is supported only for inserting or attaching drawings starting with AutoCAD 2017-based products. Drawings opened in prior versions will treat the US Survey Feet setting as Unitless.

Sample Output

Displays an example of the current settings for units and angles.

Lighting

Controls the unit of measurement for the intensity of photometric lights in the current drawing. Photometric lights use the insertion scale to determine the units used in rendering, so Insertion Scale should be set to a unit style other than Unitless.

Direction

Displays the Direction Control dialog box.