Dimensioning to 1/8" Accuracy?

[dwmosman]

a

For occasional use.

The embedded 1/8 nomenclature simply puzzles me. Obviously, the program has all the logic to perform at 1/8" accuracy. Someone MUST have needed that notation style but I've never heard anyone stand up and say why.

[ebdesign]

every truss design software & detail sheets I have seen uses that style- dropping the lower half of the eighths fraction.
I remember some cabinet designs that use it also.

Jim

[Tim O'Donnell]

Originally posted by ebdesign
every truss design software & detail sheets I have seen uses that style- dropping the lower half of the eighths fraction.
I remember some cabinet designs that use it also.

Jim

same here...that is how my truss supplier's software works as well

[James Eggert]

A simple enough question here is "Why did ART set dimensioning this way?". For what psuedo reasoning?

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[WendyWelton]

I certainly respect the desire to provide the dropped fraction option, as it's currently designed - particularly knowing there are some trades that use it as their convention. I would also like the "regular" fraction as an option.

W

[davidhead]

Exactly Wendy, Exactly.

Dave

[alobartn]

Sounds like a "suggestions" item.

Anyone?

. . . OK, I'll do it.

[frwillia]

B

I use direct entry of dimensions to place all the first floor walls, align with below to locate the foundation walls unless a special offset is required, and direct entry to place interior walls. I've never used the 1/8" option, probably wouldn't even if they had the regular fraction option.

Fitch

[Tim O'Donnell]

Originally posted by James Eggert
A simple enough question here is "Why did ART set dimensioning this way?". For what psuedo reasoning?

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here's my guess... this is left over from when systems had much more limited resources than they do now...dropping the extra numbers and b-slash saved a bit of space...remember programs used to run off those 5 1/2" floppies

[Doug Park]

I believe the answer was "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

We really need to give you total control over the dimensioning options. Including the display unit, precision, whether you are using fractions etc.

Maybe for version 11.

[alobartn]

Even an option with fractions in super script!

[WendyWelton]

Doug,

Thanks - yes. "total control" "more power" (make Tim the Toolman Taylor sound).

Fitch,

Those of use who do a lot of plans for remodeling have to deal with old chunks of buildings - where measuring to the nearest 1/16th is an exercise in futility anyway. When you do a gut renovation of a 200 year old house, that you had to measure with all the walls still in place, you really do need to give the guys a "+/-" at strategic points, so they know where they have some play and where they don't. Hence my desire for the ability to append things to the dimensions, and not have to go chasing text fragments around when I move a wall.

Wendy

[alobartn]

Oh, how I wish appending were a possibility.

[lavor]

What can I say... I'm a class A kind of guy.

I used to hang rock and learned the "truncate-the-eighth" system and loved it. It is definitely an efficient system when building. Unfortunatly not too many builders today know how to use it so they are at a loss as to what a dimension means when it reads 14'6"3.

When I used 16ths I got a lot of complaints too. Hey, I'm dealing with Alabama "educated" framers and block layers here. It gets tough to count beyond 8, I guess.

When I used 8ths it was, "what's this? Never seen dimensions like that before." and when I used 16ths it was, "It's to hard using big dimensions like that. My eyes are too bad to read all of them little lines... cant count that high."

So, I keep the plans tight, like Tim explains, eliminate all fractions I can.

[cgj@jds]

a

1/16" accuracy is nice when it'll actually be built that way!
Contractors tend to appreciate it not, although the accuracy might seem apealing.