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AutoCAD's Coordinate system

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by indiananuj

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Can anyone tell me how AutoCAD manage its Coordinate system and where it store the information about coordinete system it uses, whether it DWG file or DXF file?

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by jbartlett

There is no “management” of a coordinate system. A standard Cartesian (i.e. x,y,x) system is units with drawing units. IT is up to you to decide what each drawing unit represents and can use the DDUNITS command to set the mapping of units to more tangible dimensions.

by maxwell edison

AutoCAD stores that information in the system variables. Some can be set, while others are read only. For example, the units selected is stored in variable UNITMODE. There are scores of variables that could have what you are looking for. Some examples are USCNAME (name of current coordinate system), USCORG (coordinate system origin point), USCORTHO, USCVIEW, USCXDIR, etc. Do an AutoCAD search (in AutoCAD help) of system variables for a complete list and description.

These variables could be "called" with the AutoLisp function getvar, and they could be set with the Lisp function setvar.

They are saved in either/or a .dwg (drawing) file or a DXF (drawing interxchange format) file. I simply depends on how you save the file. Regardless, they are saved with the file.

Maxwell

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