STARTUPCHECK

It is a disaster if wrong dimension styles were used in Paper Space. For instance 1:200 dimension style was wrongly used on a 1:500 site plan.

StartUpCheck is invented to find such hardly noticed errors and fix them in one step.

INTRODUCTION

BEFORE:

1:50 scale dimension was wrongly used on a 1:20 scale viewport

AFTER:

Mismatched dimension error was fixed to match related viewport scale

Command: STARTUPCHECK

It checks the following items in all Linear Dimensions(linear, aligned, rotated), diameters, and radiuses.

  • If dimension unit matches the drawing unit (For instance, dimension unit is decimal but the drawing unit is architectural),

  • If the linear scale factor of dimensions in Model Space is set to 1,

  • If the linear scale factor of dimensions in Paper Space matches the zoom scale of the viewport which contains the dimension. (For instance, dimension is to be used on 1:200 viewports, but was wrongly used on a 1:500 viewport).

It checks Dim scale linear and Dim units

If any mismatch found, it prints a report of all mismatches in the command line window, otherwise prints a simple note:"Drawing was checked by STARTUPCHECK, no mismatch was found."

A setting dialogue follows the command line report, providing options to automatic fix all mismatches.

If there is no mismatch was found, the first two line of texts in the dialogue will be:

Options:

  • Skip this drawing in script
    If selected, current drawing is labelled as "skipped" and is ignored when (STARTUPCHECK 0) or (STARTUPCHECK 1) is used in a script or a lsp file. All other options are disabled when this option is selected. If current drawing was labelled as "skipped" before, when STARTUPCHECK runs, this option is ticked and all other options are disabled automatically. You can deselect it and press OK to remove the "skipped" label from current drawing.

  • Change dimension unit to match drawing unit
    Don't select this option if the dimension unit was set to differ from drawing unit purposely.

  • Change Model Space dimension linear scale to 1
    Don't select this option if the model space objects are not drawn in 1:1 scale purposely.

  • Change dimension linear scale to its viewport zoom scale
    If selected, the linear scale factor of mismatched dimension in Paper Space will be changed to match the zoom scale of the viewport which contains the dimension.

  • Put mismatched dimensions to layer:
    If selected, the fixed dimensions will be put on a layer specified in the following text input box. You can isolate the layer and do further check to these dimensions.
    The initial default layer name is " StartUpCheck_1", you can overwrite it with a new name. If the "    Save current settings as default" option below is selected, the new layer name becomes the default next time when STARTUPCHECK runs.

  • Put dimensions mismatch 2 viewports to layer:
    As mentioned in Note 2 below, STARTUPCHECK cannot automatically fix errors in this scenario. With this option selected, you can find out mismatched dimensions very quickly.
    The initial default layer name is " StartUpCheck_2", you can overwrite it with a new name. If the "    Save current settings as default" option below is selected, the new layer name becomes the default next time when STARTUPCHECK runs.

  • Include dimensions on locked layers
    If selected, STARTUPCHECK changes all the dimensions even they are on a locked layer.

  • Save current settings as default
    If selected, current settings become the default settings next time STARTUPCHECK runs. Before running (STARTUPCHECK 1) in a script or a lsp file, you can run command STARTUPCHECK in any drawing first, set up all settings and tick this option to save the settings.

LSP FUCTION

STARTUPCHECK also provides a lisp function which can be used in a script or another lisp file to batch process thousands of drawings or used as a start-up check routine.

(STARTUPCHECK var)

Argument:

  • var = 0,
    STARTUPCHECK only shows the checking result in the command line window if any mismatch is detected. It can be used in S::startup function in the acad.lsp or acaddoc.lsp.

  • var = 1,
    STARTUPCHECK shows the check results in the command line window, and also fix all mismatches automatically based on the default settings. (except the scenario in Note 2)
    You can change the default settings with command STARTUPCHECK. It can be used in a script file to check thousands of drawings.

  • var = 2,
    Equals to command STARTUPCHECK

NOTES

  1. It assumes the clipped viewport is in a rectangle shape which bounds the whole clipped viewport and checks all dimensions included in that rectangle. So it may include some dimensions which are outside of the clipped viewport boundary.

  2. If a dimension falls into two viewports which have different zoom scale, STARTUPCHECK cannot determine which zoom scale should be used for the dimension.

  3. In this case, it is not going to change the dimension linear scale factor. Next time STARTUPCHECK will report the mismatch again. Enable the option of "Put dimensions mismatch 2 viewports to layer" so you can isolate them and fix the problem manually.

  4. Dimensions on freezed or turned-off layers are ignored.

  5. Viewports which have been turned off are ignored.

  6. Both orthographic and isometric viewports are in the check list and it does not check perspective viewports.

  7. Once a new layer is assigned to dimension objects, even you have deleted all dimensions on this layer, it cannot be deleted or purged in current drawing. You have to save the drawing and open it again to purge this layer. This situation applies to the layers created by STARTUPCHECK, so don't worry if you have cleared the layers of StartUpCheck_1 and StartUpCheck_2 but still cannot purge them. They can be purged next time after reopen the drawing.

UPDATES

17 July 2022, Use MS Edge to open webpage when pressing help button.
28 Sep 2021, A bug fixed
14 Apr 2011, A bug fixed
18 Mar 2011, First issue