Dimensioning Best Practices - New

DIMENSIONING
Mechanical and architectural drawings

Best Practices
HELLO.
In this eBook I have added my collection of
frequently observed dimensioning best
practices related to mechanical and
architectural drawings.
This list currently contains 56 best practices

but we keep adding more best practices in
this list. Visit here for the latest version of this
eBook.

Jaiprakash Pandey | SourceCAD

MECHANICAL
DRAWINGS
36 Best Practices
Dimensioning best practices
Best Practice 1

Do not duplicate dimensions or add dimensions

giving the same information in two different ways,
except for the dual dimensioning or when you are
adding a basic dimension. Don’t add any
dimension which is not required to make a part.
Here dimensions marked in the red box are not
required and should be omitted.
3 www.thesourcecad.com
Best Practice 2

Add dimensions so that no calculation is

required to infer any dimension. Also, add
dimensions with the correct scale so that
no scale conversion is required to infer the
dimension.
Best Practice 3

Dimensions should be added to the view which

shows the shape of the part clearly.
Best Practice 4

Don’t place dimensions directly on the object

view unless it makes the drawing clearer.
Best Practice 5

Avoid dimension with reference to the hidden

lines of the drawing view and place it with
respect to center lines.
Best Practice 6
The largest dimension value should be placed

furthest from the object so that smaller
dimensions can be placed relatively closer to
the object making the overall dimensioning
clear.
Best Practice 7

One dimension should be attached to only

one view of the drawing, don’t attach one
dimension to multiple views using extension
lines.
Best Practice 8

Dimension your drawing as per the

manufacturing process used.
Best Practice 9

Never cross the dimension lines and avoid

crossing extension lines as well, you can
however cross extension lines if at all
necessary. When extension lines cross no
break is required at the point of crossing.
Best Practice 10

Generally, a circle should be dimensioned by

its diameter and an arc by its radius. The prefix
⌀ should be added before the diameter value
like ⌀18 and the R prefix before the radius like
R36.
Best Practice 11

The radius dimension should contain only one

arrowhead and it should touch the arc.
Best Practice 12

Use jogged extension lines for the radius

dimension if the center of the arc falls outside
the sheet or if it is in another view.
Best Practice 13

Lines in the drawing should not be used as

dimension or extension lines.
Best Practice 14

Extension lines should not directly start from

the part and there should be a gap of nearly
1/16″ from the object. Extension lines should
be extended nearly 1/8″ beyond dimension
lines.
Best Practice 15

Add extension lines on the nearest point of

view to be dimensioned.
Best Practice 16
Centerline can be used as an extension line but

it should retain the properties of a centerline
and not of an extension line. Don’t use the
centerline from one view for another view as
well.
Best Practice 17

Dimension numbers should be placed at the

centre of the dimension line except where
dimensions are stacked. In the case of stacked
dimensions, they can be distributed over the
dimension lines to maximize clarity.
Best Practice 18

Line up and group dimension lines as much as

possible instead of staggering them.
Best Practice 19

Text and other notes should be placed

horizontally in the drawing and not inclined to
any angle or in a verticle direction.
Best Practice 20

Dimension text size should be 1/8″ for whole

numbers and for fractions it should be 1/4″ for
every number.
Best Practice 21

Never show hidden lines in the isometric

drawing views but show the tangent lines.
Show hidden lines in orthographic view.
Best Practice 22

Leader lines should slope at angles close to 30,

45 or 60 degrees but they can be made at any
angle except horizontally and vertically. The
landing of the leader line should be a straight
line and not curved.
Best Practice 23

Use leader line with a note to show chamfer

distance and angle.
Best Practice 24

When your drawing contains several rough features

like fillets or chamfers of the same size then instead
of dimensioning all the features add dimension to
one and specify the number of times it is repeated in
the drawing using the X symbol. You can also
specify these dimensions using a note in the
drawing.
The “Typical” abbreviation is also widely used for these

types of features but the use of the “Typical”
abbreviation is not recognised by ASME Y14.5 – 2018
so try avoiding TYP or Typical notation with several
similar dimensions as it says nothing about the number
of times a feature is repeated and hence it can be, in
some cases, interpreted in more than one way.
Best Practice 25

Place the first dimension nearly 1/2″ (∼12.7 mm)

away from the object and add all stacked
dimensions nearly 3/8″ (∼9.6 mm) from the
nearest dimension.
Best Practice 26

Location dimension of holes and cylinders

should be added in views that show them as
circles and the location should be labelled from
the centre line.
Best Practice 27

Dimension of holes and cylinders should be

added in longitudinal view.
Best Practice 28

The dimension for a hole created with boring,

drilling or other manufacturing processes should
be mentioned by a note connected to a leader
line where the arrow of the leader is pointed
towards the center of the hole. The
manufacturing process can be added in the
drawing as a note and not necessarily
accompanied by the hole dimension.
Best Practice 29

Surface finish marks should be placed on the

edge of the finished surface. The finish marks
should be omitted on holes or cylinders where
a note specifies the machining operation which
created the feature.
Best Practice 30

In metric drawing if the number is less than 1

include leading zero like 0.32 but in imperial
drawing omit leading zero like .25″. Show
trailing zeros in imperial drawings like .320″
and 2.70″ and don’t show trailing zeroes in
metric drawings like 0.84 and 3.4
Best Practice 31

Don’t include unit with all dimensions instead

add a note specifying the unit of the drawing
like “Unless otherwise specified, all dimensions
are in mm“. Add unit in the drawing only when it
is clearly necessary like labelling size of a
component which is in a different unit as an
example 1/2” hose.
Best Practice 32

Don’t assume that parts in a drawing are

symmetrical even if they look alike. Add
centerline or dimension both symmetrical parts
with proper dimensions or abbreviations. Use
note if there are several symmetrical parts in
the drawing.
Best Practice 33

If the view is overcrowded with different

dimensions, two and more separate drawings
with the same view can be produced.
Best Practice 34

To avoid several dimensions in a drawing use

Ordinate dimensioning where the location of
features like a hole, slot and shaft is defined
from zero point in the drawing. In this case, no
arrow is required in the extension line. In the
following image lower left point is the origin or
point zero for both horizontal and vertical
direction and all other dimensions are
measured with respect to that point.
Best Practice 35

Symbols of hole feature like counterbore,

countersink or spotface should precede the
feature diameter symbol and the depth symbol
is added after feature diameter.
Best Practice 36

The height of the keyseat and keyway itself is

not dimensioned rather it is dimensioned with
respect to the shaft or hole. For keyseat,
dimension is from the bottom of the keyseat to
the other end of the shaft and for keyway it is
from top of the keyway to the bottom of the
hole. Width of keyway or keyseat is added
additionally.
ARCHITECTURAL
DRAWINGS
20 best practices
Best Practice 1

Use architectural tick as arrow style as its one

of the most popular one used on drawings and
easily recognisable. Though there is no set
standard when it comes to using arrow style
and as per National Cad Standards (USA) you
can use either architectural tick or even solid
arrow that is popularly used in mechanical
drawings.
Best Practice 2

Be consistent when using arrow style and only

use one arrow style throughout the drawing.
Also, make sure ticks of architectural tick is in
the same direction on the dimension line.
Best Practice 3

Do not add too many or too few dimensions to

the drawings. Add more than sufficient
dimensions in the drawing for clarity but don’t
over-dimension your drawing leaving no room
for adjustments on the site. On the other hand,
don’t add very few dimensions leaving most of
the planning to guesswork.
Best Practice 4

You can add a chain of dimensions as well as an

overall dimension in your drawing. In
mechanical drawings, only the required number
of dimensions are added, and usually, overall
dimension is avoided as it tends to mess up the
tolerance which is not the case with
architectural drawings as there is no concern
of tolerances affecting the overall dimension.
Best Practice 5

Don’t add very tight tolerances in architectural

drawings where it has no practical use.
Architectural drawings are usually not made
with very tight tolerances so maximum
precision floats around ¼” and in some
commercial buildings it can go up to 1/8”. The
dimension fractions should not be added in
increments less than 1/16” as per National
Cad standards.
Best Practice 6

Dimension text is placed above the dimensions

line in architectural drawings not in-between
dimension lines like mechanical drawings.
Best Practice 7

The outermost dimension furthest away from

the drawing is the overall dimension followed by
the dimension of critical components like wall
locations and distance of doors and windows.
Lastly, the minor details like fixture and
cabinetry distances are added in the third line
of the dimension which is nearest to the
drawing.
Best Practice 8

In drawings use sans serif fonts to improve

clarity, this is as per the National Cad
Standard recommendation. Serifs are fonts
with overhangs that may not look clean on an
architectural drawing and sans serif are fonts
without serifs or overhangs. In the following
image yellow highlights are the overhangs that
make a font “serif”.
Best Practice 9

As per National Cad Standard, minimum

dimension text size should not be less than
3/32” (2.5 mm) in CAD drawings and it should
not be less than 1/8” (3.2 mm) on hand-drafted
drawings.
Best Practice 10

All dimensioning notations should be in

uppercase and avoid italics, underline or bold
fonts in dimensioning.
Best Practice 11

For dimensions more than an inch you should

add it in the form of feet and inch both and not
only in inches. If, however, local building codes
mandates adding dimensions in inches then you
can add it in inches only. For example, add 1’4”
as dimension, not 16” even though they are
same.
Best Practice 12

Columns, fixtures (like toilet, sink etc) and

openings like doors and windows are
dimensioned from their centre. Columns are
often the first place where dimensioning should
start in a drawing.
Best Practice 13

Try avoiding crossing dimension or extension

lines but when it is unavoidable make a loop at
the point of crossing.
Best Practice 14

D or Ø symbol is used as a prefix for diameter

and R is used as a prefix for Radius. We usually
use dimeters for the circle and radius for
dimensioning an arc.
Best Practice 15

Use dimension text that is aligned to the

dimension line. Aligned dimension text should
face the bottom and right side and hence the
reading direction is from left to right and
bottom to top. The dimension text is placed
above and on the left side of the dimension line.
Best Practice 16
Exterior dimensions are added from the exterior face of the

stud to the centre mark of openings like doors or windows.
Interior dimensions are added with respect to the wall
centres. we ignore the finish material thickness on the walls
as its usually not accurate or uniform. For masonry walls we
dimension from edge to edge for the wall as well as for the
openings like Doors and windows.
Best Practice 17
Add the dimensions of exterior drawing elements like

windows, doors outside the drawing and interior dimensions
inside the drawing.
Best Practice 18
As per NCS there should be a minimum of 1/16”

(1.6 mm) gap between drawing and extension
line, minimum 9/16” (14.5 mm) inch length of first
extension line and minimum 3/8” (10 mm) for
baseline spacing. The baseline spacing for all
parallel dimensions should remain consistent
with minimum gap of 3/8” (10 mm).
Best Practice 19
Try to keep drawing clean with organized

dimensions, try not to clutter your drawings with
randomly placed dimensions and keep them
grouped for clarity.
Best Practice 20
Slopes are added with slope notation as shown

in the image below. Here for every 10-unit
horizontal distance, the slope rises 4 units in
height.
Questions
admin@thesourcecad.com
Jamshedpur, India - 16
Thank you, Kalpana Pandey for designing this eBook

Dimensioning Best Practices - New

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Dimensioning Best Practices - New

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

DIMENSIONING

Mechanical and architectural drawings

This list currently contains 56 best practices

Jaiprakash Pandey | SourceCAD

Do not duplicate dimensions or add dimensions

Add dimensions so that no calculation is

Dimensions should be added to the view which

Don’t place dimensions directly on the object

Avoid dimension with reference to the hidden

The largest dimension value should be placed

One dimension should be attached to only

Dimension your drawing as per the

Never cross the dimension lines and avoid

Generally, a circle should be dimensioned by

The radius dimension should contain only one

Use jogged extension lines for the radius

Lines in the drawing should not be used as

Extension lines should not directly start from

Add extension lines on the nearest point of

Centerline can be used as an extension line but

Dimension numbers should be placed at the

Line up and group dimension lines as much as

Text and other notes should be placed

Dimension text size should be 1/8″ for whole

Never show hidden lines in the isometric

Leader lines should slope at angles close to 30,

Use leader line with a note to show chamfer

When your drawing contains several rough features

The “Typical” abbreviation is also widely used for these

Place the first dimension nearly 1/2″ (∼12.7 mm)

Location dimension of holes and cylinders

Dimension of holes and cylinders should be

The dimension for a hole created with boring,

Surface finish marks should be placed on the

In metric drawing if the number is less than 1

Don’t include unit with all dimensions instead

Don’t assume that parts in a drawing are

If the view is overcrowded with different

To avoid several dimensions in a drawing use

Symbols of hole feature like counterbore,

The height of the keyseat and keyway itself is

Use architectural tick as arrow style as its one

Be consistent when using arrow style and only

Do not add too many or too few dimensions to

You can add a chain of dimensions as well as an

Don’t add very tight tolerances in architectural

Dimension text is placed above the dimensions

The outermost dimension furthest away from

In drawings use sans serif fonts to improve

As per National Cad Standard, minimum

All dimensioning notations should be in

For dimensions more than an inch you should

Columns, fixtures (like toilet, sink etc) and

Try avoiding crossing dimension or extension

D or Ø symbol is used as a prefix for diameter

Use dimension text that is aligned to the

Exterior dimensions are added from the exterior face of the

Add the dimensions of exterior drawing elements like

As per NCS there should be a minimum of 1/16”

Try to keep drawing clean with organized

Slopes are added with slope notation as shown

Thank you, Kalpana Pandey for designing this eBook

You might also like