How Do You Read An Architectural Ruler?
An architectural ruler, more commonly called an architect scale, is a device used to draw and study blueprints. In order for blueprints to be practical in size, they usually have to be drawn “to scale,” meaning the objects depicted in the blueprint are drawn proportionally smaller than they would appear in real life. In architecture it is crucial that these proportional scales be precise, hence the use for a fixed-dimension ruler in architectural drawing. Once you are familiar with an architect scale, you can use it to quickly convert straight-line dimensional quantities with minimal use of arithmetic. Take out your blueprint and look for the legend. That will contain the scale information. For instance, if a drawing is said to be “1/8 inch = 1 foot” in scale, it means that every inch on the blueprint corresponds to 8 feet in true size, for a ratio of 1:96. (In other words, the real thing would be 96 times longer than what’s drawn on the blueprint.) Take out your architect scale and ex
