OSNAPZ = 1

This happens a lot when dealing with aerial topo. You want to measure the distance between an existing curb line to a centerline or another known object. You use the distance command to measure and snap to the existing curb line and you expect a distance around 40' and you end up getting 568.94'. What happens is the topo element has a Z value that. So the distance that is being calculated is that actual 3 dimensional distance and not the horizontal distance you want. There is a way around this.... OSNAPZ


OSNAPZ controls weather objects snaops are automatically projected onto the plane parallel to the XY plane of the currect UCS at the current elevation..... HUH?

Basically, since we do not work on 3D mechanical or architectural files that have constantly changing UCS's, this variable sets the Z value to your current UCS Z value which is zero.

So when you set your OSNAPZ to 1 you will get XY distances, not XYZ (3D) distances.