Plot Drawing Scales and Units

A plot's main purpose is to present information to others, as a formal report. This can be submitted digitally or physically as hardcopy, with both requiring media size to be defined.

Before embarking on a report, the scale of data displayed and the drawing units should be set.

Both metric and imperial standards are supported for paper sizes, drawing units, data units and scales.

Projection Scale

A scale is important if displaying a projection. Not only does the scale determine the magnification of the data within the projection, it also determines how scale bars appear, which automatically adjust when the scale changes or when the drawing units change.

There are several ways to set the scale of a projection:

Select a projection on a plot sheet and display the Properties control bar. Adjust the values in the Scale group. See Projection Properties.
Select a projection and use the (Plots) View ribbon to alter Scale settings.
Disable Page Layout mode and use the middle mouse wheel to dynamically alter the scale of projection data.
Enable Page Layout mode and right-click a projection to select Projection >> Scale options.

Drawing Units

Metric scales are expressed as simple ratios. For example, a scale of 1:1000 means that one meter plotted represents 1000 meters in real world coordinates. Imperial scales are expressed as the ratio of drawing units to data units i.e. 1" = 100' means that one inch plotted represents 100 feet in real world coordinates.

An imperial scale of 1" = 100' is thus equivalent to a metric scale of 1:1200 (1" = 100 x 12").

Set the drawing units used for your plot using the System Options screen.