HATCH

1 About hatch patterns and fills

You can fill existing objects or enclosed areas with hatch patterns, solid color fills, or gradients,
or you can create new hatch objects.

1.1 Options
 Predefined hatch patterns.

Choose from over 70 ANSI, ISO, and other industry-standard hatch patterns, or add
hatch pattern libraries supplied by other companies.

 User-defined hatch patterns

Define your own hatch patterns based on the current linetype, with spacing, angle,
colour, and other properties you specify.

 Custom hatch patterns.

Hatch patterns are defined in the acad.pat and acadiso.pat (acadlt.pat and acadltiso.pat
for AutoCAD LT) files. You can add custom hatch pattern definitions to these files.

 Solid fill.

Fill an area with a solid colour.

 Gradient fill.

Fill an enclosed area with a colour gradient. A gradient fill can be displayed as a tint (a
colour mixed with white), a shade (a colour mixed with black), or a smooth transition
between two colours.

Gradients that mimic colours displayed on a cylinder, a sphere, or other shapes are available.

1.2 Hatch boundaries and associativity

In the following illustration, the concrete hatches are bounded, while the earth hatches are
unbounded.
By default, bounded hatches are associative, which means that the hatch object is associated
with the hatch boundary objects: changes to the boundary objects are automatically applied to
the hatch.

Non-associative hatches are not updated when their original boundary is changed.

Hatch associativity is turned on by default and is controlled by the HPASSOC system variable.
You can change hatch associativity using the Associate button on the Options palette, the
Properties palette, or the Hatch Edit dialog box.

Note: The OSOPTIONS system variable controls how object snaps work with hatch objects.
 2 Hatch and Gradient Dialog Box

 List of Options

The Hatch and Gradient dialog box has two tabs and some common options that are
available from both tabs.

3 About Hatch Islands

Enclosed areas or text objects inside hatch boundaries are treated as islands.

The three island detection styles are compared below:

Using Normal island detection, if you specify the internal pick point shown, islands remain
unhatched and islands within islands are hatched.
Using the same pick point, the results of the options are compared below.
 4 To Work with Hatching or Filling Objects or Areas

1) Click Home tab Draw panel Hatch.

2) Find
3) On the Properties panel Hatch Type list, select the type of hatch that you want to use.
4) On the Pattern panel, click a hatch pattern or fill.
5) On the Boundaries panel, specify the how the pattern boundary is selected:
 Pick Points.

Inserts the hatch or fill within a closed area that is bounded by one or more objects.
With this method, you click within the boundaries to specify the area.

 Select Boundary Objects.

Inserts the hatch or fill within a closed object, such as a circle, closed polyline, or a set
of objects with endpoints that touch and enclose an area.

The selection method is retained until you change it.

1) Click an area or object to be hatched.

2) On the ribbon, make any adjustments as needed:
 On the Properties panel, you can change the hatch type and colors or modify the
transparency level, angle, or scale for the hatch.
 On the expanded Options panel, you can change the draw order to specify whether
the hatch and its boundary are displayed in front of or behind other objects.
3) Press Enter to apply the hatch and exit the command.

Note: Enclosed areas can be hatched only if they are in a plane parallel to the XY plane of the
current UCS.

4.1 To hatch or fill a large number of closed objects

1) Use a window, crossing, or fence selection method to select all the closed objects to hatch
or fill.

Alternatively, select a closed object, right-click, and choose Select Similar from the shortcut
menu.

1) Start the Hatch (or -Hatch) command and choose any options or settings.
2) If necessary, specify the Select Objects option.
3) At the prompt, enter p (Previous) and press Enter.

The objects in the previous selection set are hatched or filled.

5 To Set Property Overrides for New Hatch Objects

Hatch objects have an additional capability that is not available with other types of objects: You
can specify which colour and transparency values will be automatically applied to each new
hatch object, and on which layer they'll be created, regardless of the current property settings.

1) Click Home tab Draw panel Hatch.

2) Find
3) On the Properties panel, set the default values for hatch type, hatch color, background
color, transparency, pattern angle, and pattern scale.
4) To set the default layer, expand the Properties panel, and choose a layer in the Hatch Layer
Override drop-down list.
5) Specify a point inside each area that you want to hatch.
6) Press Enter, or click Close on the ribbon to apply the hatch and exit the command.
All new hatch objects will use the values you set here instead of the current layer, color, or
transparency values used by all other objects.

6 Commands for Hatches and Gradients

6.1 Commands

 GRADIENT (Command)
 HATCH (Command)
 HATCHEDIT (Command)
 HATCHTOBACK (Command)
 MATCHPROP (Command)
 SOLID (Command)

6.2 System Variables

 GFANG (System Variable)

 GFCLR1 (System Variable)
 GFCLR2 (System Variable)
 GFCLRLUM (System Variable)
 GFCLRSTATE (System Variable)
 GFNAME (System Variable)
 GFSHIFT (System Variable)
 HPANG (System Variable)
 HPANNOTATIVE (System Variable)
 HPASSOC (System Variable)
 HPBACKGROUNDCOLOR (System Variable)
 HPBOUND (System Variable)
 HPBOUNDRETAIN (System Variable)
 HPCOLOR (System Variable)
 HPDLGMODE (System Variable)
 HPDOUBLE (System Variable)
 HPDRAWORDER (System Variable)
 HPGAPTOL (System Variable)
 HPINHERIT (System Variable)
 HPISLANDDETECTION (System Variable)
 HPISLANDDETECTIONMODE (System Variable)
 HPLAYER (System Variable)
 HPLINETYPE (System Variable)
 HPMAXAREAS (System Variable)
 HPMAXLINES (System Variable)
 HPNAME (System Variable)
 HPOBJWARNING (System Variable)
 HPORIGIN (System Variable)
 HPORIGINMODE (System Variable)
 HPPICKMODE (System Variable)
 HPQUICKPREVIEW (System Variable)
 HPQUICKPREVTIMEOUT (System Variable)
 HPSCALE (System Variable)
 HPSEPARATE (System Variable)
 HPSPACE (System Variable)
 HPTRANSPARENCY (System Variable)
 MIRRHATCH (System Variable)
 OSOPTIONS (System Variable)
 PICKSTYLE (System Variable)
 6.3 GRADIENT (Command)
Fills an enclosed area or selected objects with a gradient fill.

A gradient fill creates a smooth transition between one or two colors.

When the ribbon is active, the Hatch Creation contextual tab is displayed. When the ribbon is
off, the Hatch and Gradient dialog box is displayed. If you prefer using the Hatch and Gradient
dialog box, set the HPDLGMODE system variable to 1.

HATCH (Command)

Fills an enclosed area or selected objects with a hatch pattern, solid fill, or gradient fill.

When the ribbon is active, the Hatch Creation contextual tab is displayed. When the ribbon is
off, the Hatch and Gradient dialog box is displayed. If you prefer using the Hatch and Gradient
dialog box, set the HPDLGMODE system variable to 1.

If you enter -HATCH at the Command prompt, options are displayed.

Note:

 To prevent memory and performance problems, the maximum number of hatch lines
created in a single hatch operation is limited. However, you can change the maximum
number of hatch lines with the HPMAXLINES system variable.
 To maintain performance for hatches with non-continuous hatch lines, choose a
predefined hatch pattern rather than loading and setting a non-continuous linetype.
Beginning with AutoCAD 2015-based products, the HPLINETYPE system variable
suppresses the display of non-continuous linetypes in hatches by default.
 To control whether object snaps ignore hatch objects, add or subtract 1 from the
OSOPTIONS system variable.

Choose from several methods to specify the boundaries of a hatch.

 Specify a point in an area that is enclosed by objects.

 Select objects that enclose an area.
 Specify boundary points using the -HATCH Draw option.
 Drag a hatch pattern into an enclosed area from a tool palette or DesignCenter.
The following prompts are displayed.

 Pick internal point

Determines a boundary from existing objects that form an enclosed area around the
specified point.

 Select objects

Determines a boundary from selected objects that form an enclosed area.

 Remove boundaries

(Available only when adding hatches from within the Hatch and Gradient dialog box)

Removes the hatch patterns added during the currently active HATCH command. Click
the pattern you want to remove.

 Add boundaries

(Available only when adding hatches from within the Hatch and Gradient dialog box)

Switches from the Remove Boundaries mode so you can add hatch patterns again.

 Undo
 Removes the last hatch pattern you inserted with the currently active HATCH
command.

 Settings

Opens the Hatch and Gradient dialog box, where you can change settings.