Sizu Riatto
Every Angle · Chapter 1

Draw It First

Every plan starts on paper. Your pace is a ruler you always carry; a scale turns meters into millimeters you can draw, and back again.

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Opens on the book's house and plot. Change any number to your own and press Calculate.

Calibrate your pace: walk a taped length and count

Pace a wall, then check it with the tape or laser

Lengths to draw: the real length and the scale (1 : n)

Off the paper: a length you measured on the drawing (optional)

A US scale: inches on the paper to a foot on the ground

Enter a taped length and your paces, then press Calculate.

The formula

  • Your pace = the taped length ÷ the paces you walked over it
  • A paced length = paces × your pace; the error = (paced − taped) ÷ taped
  • On the paper (mm) = the real length (m) × 1,000 ÷ the scale n, for a scale of 1 : n
  • Off the paper (m) = the length on the paper (mm) × n ÷ 1,000
  • A US scale of i inches to the foot is 1 : (12 ÷ i): 1/8 in = 1 ft is 1 : 96
The book's worked example, Chapter 1. Twenty paces over a taped 15.4 m: 0.77 m a pace. Thirteen paces along the front wall give 10.01 m, 0.1% off the laser's 10.00 m. At 1 : 100 the house is 100 × 80 mm on paper; at 1 : 200 the plot is 75 × 150 mm. The US 1/8 in = 1 ft scale is 1 : 96, the nearest to 1 : 100.
Check it. Pace the same wall twice, once each way. If the two counts differ by more than a pace, calibrate again on a longer taped length.

Honest limits. A pace is good to about a pace in twenty on level ground; slopes, steps and long grass shorten it. Use the tape or laser for anything you will cut or buy. The book's house was worked out on paper from published figures, not surveyed by us: measure your own, and walk your own plot at night. Prices are illustrative US prices from November 2026, shown without a currency sign; put in your own. Everything stays in your browser: no sign-up, nothing stored.

These calculators go with Every Angle (Make It Add Up, Book 2), where every number on this page is worked by hand.