You'll have to create some sort of program to support that, but it could be done. After all, years ago I had to write one to support feet and inches before it was included in UG (this was back in the late 70's).
As for your keen observation that NX appears somehow not to be intended for Civil Engineering, you hit the nail on the head. Years ago, while we were still part of McDonnell Douglas and before we were acquired by EDS (the first time), we developed and marketed a separate CAD system known as BDS/GDS which was designed for civil engineers, architects and facilities management, or what was lumped together under the single TLA as an AEC system. When we were acquired by EDS this product came along as part of the 'deal' but EDS had no interest in that market segment and so they sold it off a few years later to some other company and that was that. But of course, since NX (Unigraphics back then) grew up next to a fully adequate architectural CAD system there was never any need to support purely AEC type standards and that has carried forward to today.
As for the support of Feet & Inches, that came about because, like the company I worked for in the late 70's, we needed to support manufacturing companies that modeled and manufactured large structural steel weldments as part of their product designs (we produced capital machinery for the food and chemical processing industries) and standard practice in that industry segment was fractional inches up to 72 inches and then feet & inches after that (the standard answer to the question of 'why was that the case' was because a folding carpenter's rule only went up to 6 feet).
Anyway, since there are no 'mechanical' standards which support decimal feet, we've never felt obligated to support it, as even a user defined option.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
