The drawing above has no scale reference. Unless this drawing were created in AutoCAD 2010 or later the internal scale embedded in the CAD file may not properly transfer into the RF CAD Modeling and Simulation software. The best way to provide a scale reference is to mark up a copy of your AutoCAD file or scanned image.

Identify a long wall on your drawing and indicate its length in feet and inches. This may require that someone physically goes to the site with a tape measure or you may be able to determine the distance from your own AutoCAD drawing.

Below is an example of the previous drawing file with a usable annotation. Please read the continued discussion following the annotated drawing.

In the drawing above you see the annotation drawn onto the AutoCAD image. Notice that there are lines at the ends of the arrows indicating that an inside dimension is shown. Please provide a textual description of your scale reference in the email message or on the faxed page. Indicate whether you're showing an inside dimension or an outside dimension. An inside dimension is what would be measured if you were in a room and you stretched a tape measure from wall to wall. An outside dimension is what would be measured if you hooked a tape measure to one corner of a building and stretched it down to the other corner. This may seem self-evident and obvious, but it's not always clear to everyone; hence the elaboration. Below is another drawing with an included scale reference. If your drawing has an included scale reference like the one shown you do NOT need to annotate your drawing. Please read the continued discussion below the following picture.

Above is an AutoCAD drawing with a linear scale drawn into the model space. This drawing requires no annotation and can be used immediately by the RF CAD design team at Connect802. If you use AutoCAD you can create a simple version of a linear scale by simply adding a line to your drawing, measuring its length, and annotating that length under the line. Your drawing may have dimension arrows already drawn in. You may see that the length and/or width of various features are noted with arrow-lines on your drawing. If your drawing has length or width dimensions written into it (with arrowhead lines and reference lines indicating what's being measured) then no additional annotation is required. Be sure your length and width information is usable and that the features being measured are clearly represented. The RF CAD design team at Connect802 spent almost two weeks of telephone and email exchanges with a customer who received the plan shown below from their architect. The customer was not an AutoCAD user and had no idea what the architect meant by the scaling depicted. The back-and-forth conversations between Connect802, customer, and architect introduced significant delay in the project. Please read the conclusions below the following picture.

As you can see above, the length and width of the OFFICE are clearly marked. You see that the inside dimension of the West wall is "475" and the inside dimension of the South wall is "530". Unfortunately there is no indication of what these units might be. The point is:

Make sure your drawing has a clear indication of the length or width of a prominent and clearly indicated wall.