Need help with hatch definition

[julie.206712]

Hi everyone. Can anyone help find what's wrong with the following hatch definition? I'm trying to resurrect it from some Acad 2008 .pat files for use in the office. When I try to use the hatch, the preview in the hatch dialog box is there, but after finishing the hatch command, AutoCAD says:

Bad pattern definition file:
Missing parameter on line 712.
?


Here is the hatch definition:

*TURF, Dense blade grass
80.537677792, .55,.5, .9863939238,.1643989873, .9,-11.26551516
99.462322208, .25,0, .9863939238,-.1643989873, .9,-11.26551516
82.874983651, 1.6,.5, .99227787671,.1240347346, .9,-15.2135264966
97.125016349, 1.2,0, .99227787671,-.1240347346, .9,-15.2135264966
90, .38,.2, 1,-.5, 1.1,-.4, .9,-.3, .8,-.3

Undying gratitude to the person who helps find the problem!

--Julie

[hugh.69031]

Hi Julie,

Line 712 indicates that is a file with more than just the TURF pattern in it so that file should be called either ACAD.PAT or ACADISO.PAT in vanilla AutoCAD.

If so, and TURF is the last pattern in the file, add a blank line following the last line and try again. TURF should be the last Predefined pattern in the BHATCH dialog.

If not, copy the 6 lines into a file called TURF.PAT, add another blank line then save the file to a directory on the Support Files path controlled by Tools:Options. TURF should come up as a Custom pattern on the BHATCH dialog.


hth,
Hugh Adamson
www.hatchkit.com.au

[julie.206712]

Hugh, thank you so much! I was indeed a simple matter of adding a completely blank line (no semi-colons) at the end of the acad.pat file. Thanks again! --Julie

[tedg]

.....Undying gratitude to the person who helps find the problem!

--Julie

Hugh, I guess you get Julie's undying gratitude.
You set the bar pretty high.

[julie.206712]

Yeah, who knew that suggesting a return at the end of a text file could do that??!! Thanks again!

[hugh.69031]

No worries. Happy to help. It's been a common problem and many would try that as the as a first remedy as it's probably been the most discussed "feature" of ACAD hatch pattern files over time - along with GRAVEL and CONC patterns disintegrating. Odd Adesk provide a fix for the latter but leave the former as a trap for anybody new to hatch pattern editing.

It's worth considering keeping custom patterns in individual files held in a (possibly shared) support directory to isolate problems and avoid changing standard pattern files. Not everybody agrees - so this has also been debated.

Hugh
www.hatchkit.com.au