Creating Hatches

Use the Hatch command to fill enclosed areas or specified entities with a hatch pattern. Hatching a drawing adds meaning and helps to differentiate the materials and areas. Some drawing applications such as construction drawings require hatch patterns which can increase the clarity and legibility of a drawing. Along with patterns, you can apply solid hatches to fill in a bounded area with the current color by selecting Solid from the Pattern list.

See Customizing Hatch Patterns to modify existing hatch patterns.

To hatch an area:

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the menu, click Draw > Hatch/Fill.
   • Type Hatch.
   • On the toolbar, click Hatch/Fill.
2. In the Hatch dialog box, do the following:

   On the Hatch tab:

   • Set the hatch pattern
   • Set the angle and scale
   • Set the hatch starting point

   On the Settings tab:

   • Specify the boundary
3. Optionally, specify additional options for hatch and boundary:
   • See Setting Additional Options for Hatches (annotative scaling, placement, transparency).
   • See Setting Behavior Options for Hatch Boundaries.
4. Click .

To hatch entities using properties of a selected hatch:

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the menu, click Draw > Hatch/Fill.
   • Type Hatch.
   • On the toolbar, click Hatch/Fill.
2. In the Hatch dialog box, on the Hatch tab, click Use properties of selected hatch.
3. In the graphics area, click an entity to specify the hatch.
4. In the Hatch dialog box, click .

To set a hatch pattern:

1. In the Hatch dialog box, on the Hatch tab, select a pattern type from the Type list.
   • Predefined. Lets you select from predefined patterns including ISO and ANSI conforming patterns, as well as patterns commonly used in specific industries.
   • User-defined. Lets you select a pattern you or your enterprise created.
   • Custom. Lets you specify a pattern determined by your Angle and Spacing specifications.
2. If you selected a Predefined type, select a pattern from the Pattern list.

   The preview area displays the selected pattern.

   You can instead use the Select Pattern Style dialog box to select a type and a pattern by clicking Choose pattern.

To set the angle and scale the hatch pattern:

1. In the Hatch dialog box, on the Hatch tab, in Angle and Scale, specify an angle for the hatch pattern, from the Angle list.

   Standard hatch patterns are made up of horizontal or vertical lines or drawn at an angle. A hatch angle of 0 degrees defines a horizontal line. The Angle list contains angle values between 0 and 360 in 15 degree increments. A positive angle rotates the pattern counter-clockwise.

2. Use the Scale list to specify a value by which to scale the hatch pattern.

   The Scale list contains values between .25 and 2 in .25 unit increments (default is 1). For example, 2 doubles the distances in the pattern and .25 reduces the original dimensions by 1/4.

   Note: User-defined patterns cannot be scaled. To change distances in user-defined patterns, use the Spacing list.

3. If you selected a User-defined type, in Spacing specify the distance between lines in the hatch pattern.

   Specify the distance in drawing units (default is 1). Change the line spacing to customize the pattern proportions for specific graphics areas.

4. If you selected an ISO Pattern type, use the ISO pen width list to select a pen width.
5. Click Scale based on sheet's units to adapt the units to the sheet.

To set the hatch pattern start point:

In the Hatch dialog box, on the Hatch tab, in Pattern start point, specify one of the following.

• Current drawing origin. Keeps the current hatch origin (default).
• User-defined location. Select Specify coordinates to specify a point in the graphics area or select User-defined location and specify a location relative to the boundary from the Use boundary list.

To save the specified location, enable Set as default.

To specify boundaries for hatch patterns:

In the Hatch dialog box, on the Hatch tab, select a method to specify boundaries.

Button	Function	Description
	Specify entities	Lets you select the entities that form the boundary.
	Specify points	Lets you click points in enclosed areas to define the boundaries.
	Rebuild boundary	Replaces a boundary after removing (enabled only when using the EditHatch command).
	Delete boundary entities	Removes boundaries from the set of entities that form the boundaries.
	Highlight boundary entities	Displays the boundaries in the drawing.

Access

Command: Hatch

Menu: Draw > Hatch/Fill

Toolbar: Hatch/Fill

Ribbon: Draw > Hatch