Join Individual Hatch Areas --Questions for users

[kathy.oconnell]

Hi all--

One of the top AUGI wishlist items for 2009 was to Join Individual Hatch areas. For anyone that voted for this wishlist item--we would like to ask you some questions on how you want to see this implemented, In other words--although this sounds pretty simple, when you dive deeper into it--mamy questions on behavior come up and we would like to know how you would like this to behave say if the two areas have different patters--which one is selected--what should happen if one is associative and one is not, etc.

If we added the ability to join individual hatch areas--what are the basics you want to see and what would you ideally want to see. Would you be willing to talk to us about this as well?

Thanks,

Kathy O'Connell
Sr. Product Manager, AutoCAD

[ccowgill]

Hi all--

One of the top AUGI wishlist items for 2009 was to Join Individual Hatch areas. For anyone that voted for this wishlist item--we would like to ask you some questions on how you want to see this implemented, In other words--although this sounds pretty simple, when you dive deeper into it--mamy questions on behavior come up and we would like to know how you would like this to behave say if the two areas have different patters--which one is selected--what should happen if one is associative and one is not, etc.

If we added the ability to join individual hatch areas--what are the basics you want to see and what would you ideally want to see. Would you be willing to talk to us about this as well?

Thanks,

Kathy O'Connell
Sr. Product Manager, AutoCAD

I would think it should work very similar to pljoin (old express tool) or possibly how the pedit join works now, the first item selected should dictate how the second item behaves when joined. I am more than willing to talk about it with you.

[Opie]

I agree with Chris. The first selection dictates, however, if subsequent selections are non-associative, then the entire selection should not be associative.

[yuki.yu]

Some follow up questions per this request:
1. Would you expect the hatch areas stay the same after joining or could tolerant changes in hatched areas (See attached image 1)? Would you expect the hatch loop stay the same after joining or is ok for changes in hatch loop (See attached image 2)

2. After joining the hatch areas, do you expect creating a single hatch object or could tolerant creating a hatch selection which you can change hatch properties together?


3. After joining the hatch areas, what kind of properties would you modify for the result hatch object? Could you list any property you can think of? Would you like to change the island detection property for the result hatch object?

[ccowgill]

Some follow up questions per this request:
1. Would you expect the hatch areas stay the same after joining or could tolerant changes in hatched areas (See attached image 1)? Would you expect the hatch loop stay the same after joining or is ok for changes in hatch loop (See attached image 2)

2. After joining the hatch areas, do you expect creating a single hatch object or could tolerant creating a hatch selection which you can change hatch properties together?


3. After joining the hatch areas, what kind of properties would you modify for the result hatch object? Could you list any property you can think of? Would you like to change the island detection property for the result hatch object?

I dont understand the first half of question #1, but for the loop, I would expect it to go away and create one continuous hatch area with the grips on the outside. That is currently one of the issues I have with a hatch object that exists in multiple locations, but is a single hatch object, if you ever want to join them (eliminate gaps between the hatches), you have these extra grips that you cannot get rid of.

IMHO, I think that you are trying to make it way more complicated than it needs to be. I understand that you have to look at all sides of the issue, but if you make it work like pljoin, it should answer all the questions you need. If you set it up so the properties of the first hatch selected dictate what happens to all other hatches joined to it, it will answer most of your questions. As to #3, I would expect the Joined hatch to act as though it was originally hatched that way, so I would expect any properties that are available to be changed with an original hatch to be editable in a joined hatch. Anything less than this would render this another half baked tool, that will be shelved and never used.

[irneb]

As far as I'm concerned it should basically erase all the hatches from 2nd selected onwards after it's modified the 1st to have its hatch area "unioned" (like you would with a region) with those of the rest. Leave the hatch's properties as it was, no need to modify. Annotative / not should stay as the 1st hatch is. I.e. it should be similar to doing a hatch edit and adding the boundaries.

Associativity should be taken together with all the hatches, if they all are associative. If one is not, then dis-associate - it would be out of this scope to re-associate hatches.

The tolerance should be set to the largest value of the selected hatches.

[Opie]

I concur with irneb on this one.

[yuki.yu]

Thanks Christopher,
For the first half of question #1, I'm trying to figure out after joining the individual hatch areas, whether create a "group" of individual hatches which you can change properties for all hatches in this group as a whole will also serve the purpose of this request.
Since different hatches are created with different methods (select object, pick points, also with different island detection settings), the result joined hatch is very possibly looks different from the sum of original individual hatches.

Got your point that the appearance of the final joined hatch should be the same as the sum of individual hatches, except the loop should be simplified. And all properties should be available for the final joined hatch. Correct?

Thanks,
Yuki

[yuki.yu]

As far as I'm concerned it should basically erase all the hatches from 2nd selected onwards after it's modified the 1st to have its hatch area "unioned" (like you would with a region) with those of the rest. Leave the hatch's properties as it was, no need to modify. Annotative / not should stay as the 1st hatch is. I.e. it should be similar to doing a hatch edit and adding the boundaries.

Associativity should be taken together with all the hatches, if they all are associative. If one is not, then dis-associate - it would be out of this scope to re-associate hatches.

The tolerance should be set to the largest value of the selected hatches.

Thanks Irneb,
Good point for doing it just as hatch edit and adding the boundaries. Since currently when you add boundaries to a hatch, the hatched area may change according to the way you create the hatch (select boundary and pick points), is it preferred to keep this consistence with hatch edit?

Agree on the association and tolerance settings for the final joined hatch.


Thanks,
Yuki

[ccowgill]

Thanks Christopher,
For the first half of question #1, I'm trying to figure out after joining the individual hatch areas, whether create a "group" of individual hatches which you can change properties for all hatches in this group as a whole will also serve the purpose of this request.
Since different hatches are created with different methods (select object, pick points, also with different island detection settings), the result joined hatch is very possibly looks different from the sum of original individual hatches.

Got your point that the appearance of the final joined hatch should be the same as the sum of individual hatches, except the loop should be simplified. And all properties should be available for the final joined hatch. Correct?

Thanks,
Yuki

I dont think that making the separate hatches a group would be the same, I really would want them to be a single hatch object (see screen shot). I would think that the final hatch should be very similar to the sum of the original hatches, dare I say, ignore the original methods and just make the final result look the same, as though it was originally hatched that way with a single hatch object.

yes all properties should be available for the final joined hatch.

In the below screen shot, the top is before the hatches are joined, the bottom how I envision the hatch looks after it is joined.