SimpleCAD offers 2 Ways To Customize Your Hatch Patterns Inside AutoCAD
Bend, OR (PRWEB) June 30, 2014 -- Since AutoCAD® was first released, hatch patterns have provided users with a way to quickly fill an area in a drawing with a repeating pattern.
The pattern simply fills the area and then stops when it reaches the perimeter of the boundary to be hatched.
Later versions of AutoCAD® allowed hatch patterns to be associative, meaning the patters will dynamically update when a boundary is either stretched or edited.
Standard hatch patterns ship with releases of AutoCAD® but for those who need other patterns, there are 2 ways to customize them further.
Adding existing code
First, a pre-made pattern can be installed and added either as a custom or user defined library or simply added to the standard Autocad® .pat file using the Notepad editor.
Erik Z., owner of SimpleCAD.com who has been in the CAD industry for 25 years explains, “Simple hatch patterns are pretty easy to create for a novice CAD user. It’s the more intricate hatches which are the ones that are a bit tricky as more detailed coding is required.”
Hatch pattern codes consist of origin points, offsets and line angles in plain text format which can be created from scratch. Many times they are already readily available for download or can be purchased for a nominal fee.
Creating new patterns using an editor
A second way of creating hatch pattern files is by using a hatch pattern generator. This are utilities which can copy and extract patterns from an existing AutoCAD® drawing.
This avoids having to create the code from scratch and is a preferred method for those who need a pattern not yet available.
Hatch Pattern Resources:
SimpleCAD is located in Bend, Oregon just east of the Cascades. They offer both email phone support in the U.S. and Canada.
You can reach them at Tel: (877) 933-3929 or at mail(at)simplecad(dot)com.
Erik Z., SimpleCAD, http://simplecad.com, +1 (877) 933-3929 Ext: 0, [email protected]
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