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What are AutoCAD Hatch Patterns?
AutoCAD hatch patterns are a set of graphic patterns that are used to hatch a surface in a drawing. This patterns range from grass to bricks to any imaginable design and are stored as .pat files.
You can use predefined default AutoCAD hatch patterns and you can modify or create your own custom pattern. You can also download hatch patterns and add them to AutoCAD. In this tutorial, we would be learning how to apply an AutoCAD hatch pattern to a drawing.
How to Use AutoCAD Hatch Patterns
The first step is to click on the home on your AutoCAD tool pallet (note the hatch tool will only show on your tool pallet if you are in the drafting and annotation workspace).
Next, click on the hatch tool located in the DRAW tab.
To apply the hatch tool, you can either select the *pick a point* which can be used to hatch an enclosed area or you can use the *select* which hatches a selected object (object must be enclosed e.g. circle, rectangle etc).
For this drawing, we will use the *pick an enclosed area* because we are to hatch the enclosed area between the outer line and the inner line of the building plan drawing which indicates the block work.
Pick any pattern you like and click on the enclosed space to apply the pattern. For this drawing, we will use ANS134.
The hatch tool could be used as
- Pattern
- Solid color
- Gradient
Click on this drop down to see the different hatch patterns that are available
Hatch Patterns can be edited, the hatch pattern angle, the scale factor and the transparency can be varied. Let’s change the scaling factor from 1 to 200 (note the scaling factor is dependent on the size of your drawing, so for the hatch pattern to show properly you will need to vary the scale factor) and let’s change the hatch pattern angle to 45 degrees. Applying these we get:
We also have the hatch gradient, where you can use at least 2 colors to create a color gradient in an enclosed area to be hatched. Remember your basic primary color code RGB red, green and blue. For white light, you have 255,255,255. You can vary this code to get the color you need. After this select 2 colors to create a gradient with and apply.
For solid color, you can only apply one color, unlike the gradient where you require two colors to create a hatch gradient; here only one color is used. You can change the color to e.g. red, blue, white etc and click on an enclosed space to apply.
Match Property
If you wish to match a property of a hatch pattern you had done before to another object instead of having to start all over again to create a hatch for a new object, you use the match property. Simply click on the source object with hatch pattern and then click on the object to apply the hatch pattern
