Dimensions, leaders and annotation scales

A dimension measures the drawing and writes the measurement. In LinceCAD every dimension is an AutoCAD dimension object (DIMENSION) with its style: it is drawn from its definition points and regenerated when it is moved, copied or its style changes, so AutoCAD recognizes it and can edit it.

Dimension types

Command	Measures
DIMLINEAR	Horizontal or vertical distance between two points
DIMALIGNED	True distance, parallel to the two points
DIMANGULAR	Angle between two lines or defined by a vertex and two points
DIMRADIUS / DIMDIAMETER	Radius or diameter of a circle or an arc
DIMJOGGED	Radius of a large arc, with a jogged dimension line
DIMARC	Length of an arc
DIMORDINATE	X or Y coordinate of a point
DIMCONTINUE	Dimensions chained after the last one
DIMBASELINE	Several dimensions from the same origin
QDIM	A series of dimensions of all the selected geometry

All of them ask for the points one by one, with a preview; object snaps (Endpoint, Center, Intersection...) are almost essential to dimension accurately. The dimension is created on the current layer; its lines, arrows and text go on layer 0 of the dimension's block with ByBlock properties, as in AutoCAD.

TOLERANCE creates geometric tolerance feature control frames (position, flatness, perpendicularity...); measurement tolerances (± and limits) are turned on in the dimension style.

Editing dimensions

Grips move the dimension line, the text or the measured points.
MOVE, COPY, ROTATE, SCALE, MIRROR and ARRAY regenerate the dimension; each copy gets its own block.
DIMEDIT changes the text of dimensions or puts it back in its home position.
DIMSPACE evens out the spacing between parallel dimensions, DIMBREAK breaks them where other objects cross them and DIMJOGLINE adds a jog to a linear dimension.
The PROPERTIES palette has Dimension and Overrides sections: changing a dimension variable there overrides it for that dimension only, without touching the style (stored as AutoCAD does).

Associative dimensions

With DIMASSOC set to 2 (the initial value), a dimension whose points lie on the geometry (endpoint, midpoint, center, quadrant, node or polyline vertex) is associated with it: when the line, arc or polyline is moved, stretched, scaled or edited with grips, the dimension moves and its measurement changes.

If the dimension is moved on its own or its geometry is erased, the dimension is disassociated and stays where it is.
DIMREASSOCIATE associates it again by specifying its points once more; DIMDISASSOCIATE removes the association.
Associations are saved as in AutoCAD, both ways: associative dimensions of an AutoCAD drawing stay associative in LinceCAD, and the other way round.
A point at an intersection or a nearest point does not associate the dimension.

Dimension styles

DIMSTYLE opens the dimension style manager, with Set Current, New, Modify, Rename and Delete. When you modify a style, its settings are on AutoCAD's tabs: Lines, Symbols and Arrows, Text, Fit and Primary Units. Changes to a style apply to all the dimensions that use it.

A new drawing starts, as with AutoCAD's acadiso.dwt, with two styles: Standard (the inch one) and ISO-25, the current one (metric, arrows and text 2.5 high, with the same variables as in AutoCAD 2027). The decimal separator of the measurements is the style's: with a comma, as in Spanish AutoCAD, the dimension reads "56,57". The current style is in DIMSTYLE.

Multileaders

MLEADER draws a multileader: arrowhead, leader line, landing and a text or a block.

MLEADERSTYLE: creates, modifies and sets current multileader styles.
MLEADEREDIT: adds leader lines to an existing multileader or removes some.
MLEADERALIGN: aligns the contents of several multileaders.

Annotation scales

For texts and dimensions to have the intended size on paper there are two ways:

Fixed scale: DIMSCALE multiplies all dimension sizes (with 50, a 2.5 arrowhead is 125 drawing units long, which is 2.5 mm on a 1:50 plot), and texts are written with the height already multiplied.
Annotative objects: they are written with the paper height (2.5) and shown at the size that matches the annotation scale (CANNOSCALE). If the plot changes scale, just change the annotation scale.

The current annotation scale is chosen with the selector on the status bar (or with CANNOSCALE) among the scales of the drawing's list, which is edited with SCALELISTEDIT. What is created annotative:

texts, multiline texts and dimensions created with an annotative style (Annotative box in STYLE and on the Fit tab of DIMSTYLE);
multileaders and tolerances with an annotative style;
any text or dimension set to Annotative: Yes in the PROPERTIES palette.

An annotative object can support several scales and keeps one representation (position and size) for each. OBJECTSCALE adds scales to it or removes them and, with ANNOAUTOSCALE, the new scale is added automatically when the annotation scale changes. In a layout, each viewport shows the annotative objects at its own scale: the same text comes out the same size in a 1:50 viewport and in a 1:100 one.

Everything is saved as in AutoCAD: annotative objects of an AutoCAD drawing look the same in LinceCAD, and the other way round.

Notes

Annotative blocks cannot be created yet (those that come in drawings do change scale), and annotative multileader styles are the ones that come in drawings.
A grip moves all the representations of an annotative object, not only the one shown, and a copy of an annotative object supports only the current scale.