Hatch editer, interim solution

[Andre Baros]

There are already several wishes for a hatch editor, I'm still wishing, but in the mean time here's some interim ideas.

Being able to set a different angle for each line in a standard crosshatch. This would let you create diamond hatches, and a passable plywood hatch.

A related option would be to have hatches in detail components rotate with the components.

Having to have a plywood hatch for every possible angle in details is driving me crazy.

Ultimately, a full blown Revit hatch editor is still required.

[cosmickingpin]

There are several Hatch editing programs available, just do a little research on the net there. They range in their sophistication depending on your needs. I like the fact that Autocad and Revit use the same *.txt files to generate hatches, that means I can buy a ton of hatches on line for CAD and by changing the first three lines, BOOM! I have a Model Hatch or Drafting Hatch... Any ACad hatch can be converted to a Revit Hatch, just do a little research, there... Just spend a little money and buy yourself a stack of Cad hatches and spend a little time converting them to revit hatches.

There are already several wishes for a hatch editor, I'm still wishing, but in the mean time here's some interim ideas.

Being able to set a different angle for each line in a standard crosshatch. This would let you create diamond hatches, and a passable plywood hatch.

A related option would be to have hatches in detail components rotate with the components.

Having to have a plywood hatch for every possible angle in details is driving me crazy.

Ultimately, a full blown Revit hatch editor is still required.

[J. Grouchy]

Having to have a plywood hatch for every possible angle in details is driving me crazy.

Why not just make it a model pattern and lock the pattern to the boundary edge?

AutoCAD was onto something with Superhatch...but i don't have anything beyond r2000...have they developed it further or abandoned it?

[bclarch]

A related option would be to have hatches in detail components rotate with the components.

Definitely need to have the ability to lock hatch rotation to component rotation if we want.

[Andre Baros]

We've got a library of standard hatches, brought over from Acad. I took the time to configure them to be model hatches and drafting hatches or both as required. I've scaled and rotated them as required, for many of them. I've got some third party hatch editors to generate some of the hatches we don't have. These take care of many situations, but not all.

Some issues: Plywood. If you have a plywood deck and plywood sheeting in a wall, you need to use two different hatches for your details. Model hatches don't work in detail components or as cut patterns (though maybe that would be the easiest solution to the problem). If you have more than 1 slope to your roof, you're out of luck again. If you change the definition of the roof or wall to include a plywood hatch in your wall or roof, you have to have a different roof for every slope, not very Revit. If you have plywood in a wall, and cut a plan detail at a corner, one wall hatches correctly, and any wall meeting it at another angle doesn't. Glass hatches have the same problem, as do any other hatch which we usually run parallel or perpendicular to an object not as a direction-less field.

Custom stone work or tile work. We don't model every stone, or tile in a project, we hatch them. In Acad (I never thought I'd have to say that) you could scale a hatch, in Revit you have to re-import every hatch etc. etc. For something as simple as a running bond stone wall, using stone tile at a larger size, I had to open a different program to draw the right hatch, then load it in several times to get all the scales I needed. For a custom tile pattern on a floor, I just expect a program as powerful as Revit to let me create a hatch on the fly, looking at the floor it's going to repeat on.

Acad's super hatch was cool, but I do prefer to be able to have a library of hatches. I just wish that Revit let me add to that library with an editor like the family editor. Pick a hatch, pick edit hatch, adjust the pattern, save it to the project library, load it back into the project. Rotate a detail component, watch the hatch rotate with it.

The more refined our Revit workflow has become, the more we don't draft a lot of details but instead rely on detail components. This works great until to need to hatch things and even though Revit's model hatches are awesome, drafting patterns need to catch up.

[dpasa]

[Mod note: Merged wish, Dpasa agrees!]
Better hatch dialog and pattern manipulation.

[jbalding48677]

We use HatchKit from Cadro. You can download a demo copy or buy it from www.cadro.com.au/hatchkit

It works pretty well. We have been using it to create some pretty detailed hatches for some Islamic tile patterns, very beautiful and very complex.

HTH -

[janunson]

Having to have a plywood hatch for every possible angle in details is driving me crazy.

I'm using a detail componant for plywood that contains the hatch as arrayed lines, width a type componant, lenght an instance componant... so i can insert a 5/8" plywood, rotate to align, then stretch to length...

Not a hatch editing solution, but the best workaround i've found so far...

Found this thread because was trying to import autoCAD hatches and couldn't get them to rotate correctly.