I love .pat files. come to this thread if you love them as much as me.

[j_starko]

.pat files lately feel like the bane of my existance...

I have some in autocad that are super close to what I want, Where would I look for the pat files that are currently being used in a drawing ?

I'm good at modifying them, and the one I want to modify is a brick hatch. I just want it to be a longer brick.

how do we get .pat files out of autocad ?

[cliff collins]

In Revit, in the material/fill editor, go to Custom, and browse to where the acad.pat file is on your system. Load it in, make a new fill pattern, and happy "hatching" in Revit....

cheers

[cbaze]

Use the attached spreadsheet, it's easier. There's brick and brick with grout tabs at the bottom.

[twiceroadsfool]

how do we get .pat files out of autocad ?

It depends on the configuration of AutoCAD. Go to the Big A in the corner, and go to Options. In the Files tab, look for the patterns locations. There may be a whole bunch of folders specified, but the default one is somewhere in ProgramData or AppData or ProgramFiles, i can never remember. Your CAD manager may have them on the network, if hes smart.

[j_starko]

Use the attached spreadsheet, it's easier. There's brick and brick with grout tabs at the bottom.

this totaly deserves a gold star !!!!! you just made my day !


I like this.

I'm making a metric version too . (edit: I guess not much needs to be changed to make this metric, it's in decimal inches to boot !!!! a sky full of gold stars for you ! lol)

[Alfredo Medina]

Don´t forget that for the brick pattern to show the brick's dimensions properly, the hatch pattern should be "model", not "drafting". Drafting patterns scale up and down when the scale of the view changes. You can enable your AutoCAD hatch pattern definitions as Revit's model hatch patterns by adding the line ";%TYPE=MODEL" below the name of the pattern, as shown in this example, extracted from acad.pat:

*BRICK, Brick or masonry-type surface
;%TYPE=MODEL
0, 0,0, 0,.25
90, 0,0, 0,.5, .25,-.25
90, .25,0, 0,.5, -.25,.25

Adding that line won't affect the usage of the hatch pattern in AutoCAD.

[twiceroadsfool]

I also wouldnt pull a brick hatch from native AutoCAD, period. The level of accuracy thing is going to bite you. If the AutoCAD hatch spacing has the 2.6666666666666667's in it, the bricks arent going to course in elevation.

Dont set it to have one line repeating every 2.6666666666667. But have one line repeating every 8 inches, from 0, and one every 8 inches from 2.666666666667, and one every 8 inches, from 5.3333333333. Theres a big difference, and its quite annoying.

My way technically means 1 out of three bricks are the wrong size (slightly), but its the only way things course worth a damn.

[Alfredo Medina]

I also wouldnt pull a brick hatch from native AutoCAD, period.

I like the way you say "period". However, a hatch pattern like the one shown above (or other similar brick hatch patterns from AutoCAD), can be used in Revit to display 8 inches per every 3 courses of brick in elevation, without issues.

[twiceroadsfool]

Awesome, go for it.

its not a personal affront man. Its also not JUST an AutoCAD .pat thing. heck the STOCk Revit OOTB Brick doesnt even course correctly. Im just saying, me PERSONALLY (notice i didnt say best practice... I said ME, I wouldnt), id rather take the 5 mintues and have bricks that course correctly the 85% of the time im going to land on a modular dimension.

I also dont like the Fill Patterns in Revit being imported with Scale Factors. It has the potential to cause confusion. "Whats the standard? Mines too dense, theirs is different." The extra few lines to have both scales, in the .pat file, is easily worth it.

Im the same way about Line Styles. When i was implementing at a Revit and ACA firm, i even converted BOTH the Revit AND the ACA Linetypes. They didnt have a "Dash" Linetype anymore. They had a "Demolition 1.0 (NCS)" Linetype, and a "Hidden 1.0 (NCS)" Linetype. They picked it by the purpose, and not by the graphic. They hated the concept when i introduced it, and a few weeks in they were loving it.

I dont want one hatch trying to do 6 things. This is brick, Standard sized brick. This one over here? Thats economy brick. Theyre different.

Just my two cents, and yes, in MY two cents, i said Period. Its a forum, we all have different ideas.

[ron.sanpedro]

I also wouldnt pull a brick hatch from native AutoCAD, period. The level of accuracy thing is going to bite you. If the AutoCAD hatch spacing has the 2.6666666666666667's in it, the bricks arent going to course in elevation.

Dont set it to have one line repeating every 2.6666666666667. But have one line repeating every 8 inches, from 0, and one every 8 inches from 2.666666666667, and one every 8 inches, from 5.3333333333. Theres a big difference, and its quite annoying.

My way technically means 1 out of three bricks are the wrong size (slightly), but its the only way things course worth a damn.

Aaron, would you be willing to post an example? Say a Mallerated version of modular running bond? I think I understand what you are saying conceptually (coursing from a "base" dimension rather than from the previous course), but I am not sure about how to actually execute that in PAT language. Of course my understand of PAT language is mostly change a value, reload, see what happens, change again, repeat a bazillion times until something finally works. I am getting ready to revise a bunch of patterns and would like to understand everything better going in. Likely to be more expert at PATs than I really want by the time I am done.

Thanks,
Gordon