Hatch

Create hatches or solid-fill using the circle, rectangular, polygonal, entity, intersection or track draw boundary method.

This function allows you to insert a hatch pattern or solid fill elements of the drawing, by specifying the hatch/fill parameters and indicating the perimeter.

You can define the hatch perimeter in a number of ways:

• Auto-tracking of the perimeter.

• Defining entities.

• Indicating entities and their intersections with other entities.

You can also change a hatch by selecting it and the dragging the hatch nodes to new positions. The hatch entity can have one of four fill types:

• Predefined Pattern

• User defined Pattern

• Solid Fill

• Gradient Fill

The Pattern hatch types also allow you to specify the pattern origin in order to make the pattern symmetrical to the hatch area or to retain the integrity of complicated patterns.

Procedure

1. The Hatch Control Bar displays and you are prompted to:

2. If you want to change the current hatch attributes, click Settings to display the Hatch Options. Here you can select a hatch style, scale, rotation and colour.

3. The hatch pattern is displayed in the Sample section.

4. To view the patterns before selection, click ... to display the Select Hatch Style window. You can scroll through the various styles, or type the name of the hatch pattern you are looking for in the Search field.

5. Select the pattern and click OK. The pattern is displayed in the Sample section.

6. Click OK to continue; or Cancel to exit the settings.

7. If you select a pattern hatch, the Control Bar displays an additional option for the pattern origin.

8. There are a number of Hatch Boundary options.

Define Hatch Boundaries as Circles

To define hatch boundaries as circles:

1. Click the icon .  

2. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate centre point of circle

3. Use the snap or jump modes to move to the centre of the circle, and then press [Enter] or click. A highlighted circle rubberbands.

4. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate point on radius

5. Use the snap or jump modes to move to the circumference of the circle. Click to indicate the position.  

6. The circle is hatched.

7. Right-click and select Accept to set the hatching; or select Add New Boundary to select a new hatch boundary method.

If you do not select Accept, the hatch pattern is not set.

8. Right-click and select Quit to end the function. Alternatively, press [Esc].

Define Hatch Boundaries as Rectangles

To hatch a rectangular entity:

1. Click the Hatch Rectangle icon .

2. You are prompted to:

3. Select the type of Finish you want from the dropdown list.

If you select a Chamfer or Fillet finish, you can enter a value in the text box.

4. Use the snap or jump modes to move to the first point and click to indicate the position. A rubberbanded rectangle displays.

5. You are prompted to:

6. Use the snap or jump modes to move to the second point of the rectangle and click to indicate the position. The rectangle is hatched.

7. Right-click and select Accept to set the hatching; or Add New Boundary to select a new hatch boundary method.

If you do not click Accept, the hatch pattern will not be set.

8. Once you have finished adding the hatch boundaries and they have all been accepted, right-click and select Quit to end the function. Alternatively, press [Esc].

• The rectangle below is hatched with a chamfer of 40.

1. • The rectangle below is hatched with a fillet of 40.

Define Hatch Boundaries as Closed Polylines

To hatch straight line entities using a polyline selection:

1. Click the Hatch Polyline icon .

2. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Click on start position of hatch polyline (Right-click for menu)  

3. Use the snap or jump modes to move to the first point, and then click or press [Enter] to indicate the position.

4. A line rubberbands.

5. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Click on next position of hatch polyline (Right-click for menu)

6. Move to the next point using the snap or jump modes, and then click or press [Enter].

7. Continue to enter on the point around the entity to be hatched.

8. Once the entity is outlined, right-click to open the context menu. 

1. • Select Cancel Last Vertex to undo the last selection.

   • Select Cancel Current Boundary to remove the entire selection and start again.

   • If you select Add New Boundary, you are prompted to:

Boundary 2 - Click on start position of hatch polyline (Right-click for menu)

1. • The Close Current Boundary option joins the last entered point to the start point, and completes the polyline hatch function.

9. The hatching is inserted.

10. The function repeats and you are prompted to:

Boundary 2 - Click on start position of hatch polyline (Right-click for menu)

11. You can outline a new boundary to hatch.

12. Once you have completed selecting the areas to hatch, right-click  and select the Accept option.

13. You are prompted to:

14. Right-click and select Quit to end the function. Alternatively, press [Esc].

Define Hatch Boundaries by Selecting Entities

To hatch by selecting entities:

1. Click the Hatch Entity icon .

2. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate entity to add

3. Click near the entity to be added. The entity is highlighted, indicating it has been selected.

4. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate entity to add

5. Continue to select the entities to be added to the boundary.

If the entities have been grouped or the entity is a drawn with a polyline, the object can be selected by clicking inside the border.  

The right side of the lock below has been grouped and is selected by clicking inside the border.

6. Once all the entities have been selected, right-click and select an option from the popup menu.

7. Select Add New Boundary to select a new hatch boundary method.

8. Press [Esc] to end the function.

Define Hatch Boundaries by Intersections

To hatch an entity by intersections:

1. Click the Hatch Intersection icon .

2. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate first boundary element (right-click for menu)

3. Click the first element.

The element is highlighted to indicate it has been selected.

4. You are prompted to:

Boundary 1 - Indicate next boundary element (right-click for menu)

5. Continue to click on the elements. You need to select the elements in an order where the next element selected intersects with the last element selected. If you don't, a warning informs you that the indicated entities do not intersect.

6. Once the last intersecting element is selected, the area is hatched.

7. The function repeats and you are prompted to:

Boundary 2 - Indicate first boundary element (right-click for menu)

8. You can now select the next boundary using the intersection option if required.  

9. When you are finished selecting entities to be hatched, right-click  and select Accept to set the hatching, or Add New Boundary to add a new boundary using the same or a different method.

10. Right-click and select Quit to end the function. Alternatively, press [Esc].

Define Hatch Boundaries by Automatic Tracking

To hatch an entity by tracking:

1. Click the Automatic Tracking icon .

2. You are prompted to:

The area selected must be a closed boundary for this option to work.  

If the area is not closed, an error message is displayed.

3. Click inside the perimeter of the area to be hatched and near an entity.

4. The area is hatched and the function repeats.  

5. You are prompted to:

6. Continue to click inside the areas to be hatched.

7. Right-click once you have finished selecting the boundaries to open the context menu.

If you have made a mistake in your selection, select Cancel Current Boundary and all selections will be undone.

8.  Select Accept to complete this phase of adding hatch.

9. You are again prompted to:

10. Right-click and select Quit to end the function. Alternatively, press [Esc].

Islands

To hatch an island (exclude from hatching) entity, you can select the Detect Islands option.

This option is limited to ten islands. If more are required, hatching will have to be done manually for each island followed by the enclosing boundary.

Detect Islands

The Detect Islands checkbox allows you to place the cursor near the perimeter of the entity to be hatched and click.

The selected entity is hatched and the entities which fall inside the hatch area are excluded.

Track Selection

The Track Selection checkbox allows you to select the area to be hatched and then select the entities to be excluded from the hatching.

1. Select the entity to be hatched by clicking near the perimeter. The entire area is hatched.

2. You are prompted to:

3. Click inside the entities to be excluded from the hatching.

4. The hatching is removed from the selected entities.

Tolerance

The Tolerance option allows you to specify a distance to be ignored when the entity is not closed.  

This allows the auto tracking to still track around the selected entities even though they are not closed.

The example below shows the a shape that is not closed.

The gap between the start and end points is 0.5mm.

With the tolerance set to 0.001 you will receive the following error message.

If the tolerance has been set to 1, any gap less than the tolerance value will be ignored and the entity will be selected and hatched.

The number which appears after the word Boundary in the prompts refers to the next boundary to be selected.

Pattern Origin

The Pattern Origin dropdown list includes the following options:

Editing the Origin of an Existing Hatch

1. Select a predefined or user pattern type hatch, and then press [F4] to open the Properties Bar.

2. Click Pick Origin.

3. You are prompted to:

Indicate the pattern origin

4. Click anywhere in the drawing to set the pattern origin at the indicated point.  

The boundary extent options (bottom-left, bottom-right, top-left, top-right and centroid) will no longer be available for the Pick Origin button.  This is easily remedied by ensuring that the Show selection handles option is checked in the General tab of System Settings, and the snap to point option is enabled when indicating the pattern origin.