Chapter 16: Measuring and Dimensioning with Precision

Overview

You take great care to make your drawings accurate, because people and projects depend on it. Yet with all the other tasks that go into detailed technical drawings such as architectural or facilities management plans, you can’t spend all your time measuring shapes. Of course, guesswork doesn’t save you any time in the long run, because accuracy matters.

In fact, when accuracy matters, it really matters, as indicated by this man’s remark, recently overheard in a caf . “On the drawing that I’m working on,” he told a friend, “they have actually drawn the crack in the door. Now that’s accuracy!” He was almost certainly using a computer-aided design (CAD) program. Microsoft Office Visio 2003 will never replace full- fledged CAD systems. Even the comparison is unfair. However, one Visio manager, a former architect, drafted extremely thorough and accurate plans for his house in Visio, a task not for the faint of heart, but entirely within the realm of possibility. Even if your diagramming goals aren’t as elaborate, you can still get the level of precision you need.

This chapter tells you how to set up scaled drawings, position shapes precisely, display measurements, and work with the many drawing aids that can help you draw and position shapes with precision. Even if you’re not drawing to scale and just want to align and distribute shapes perfectly, this chapter can tell you how.