New Pattern Fill feature in Layout

kaas

Should I continue development further you think ?

Please do. For me as an architect real hatches in SketchUp are way better than those in LayOut:

they can be exported to third party programs
SU line-hatches in LayOut are much more crisp lines (no jaggies)
if I draw a section in SU and apply real hatches in SU those two are re-used multiple times in LayOut: once for the section 1:100 and fragments of the same section multiple times as details scale 1:10

Doing the hatches in LayOut is a no-go for me because of nr 3) If I would have to make changes I would have to do them on multiple parts in LayOut which would increase the risks of forgetting something / making errors etc.

Greetings

Max

edit: quote-code went wrong

jolran

Point taken, I'll continue development then

It may delay though, working on some other stuff right now.

Thanks for showing interest.

/Joel

Krisidious

SU line-hatches in LayOut are much more crisp lines (no jaggies)

New Layout Hatch does not have "Jaggies", The old Raster Imports of SU models do.

kaas

@jolran said:

Point taken, I'll continue development then

Absolutely wonderful. Highly appreciated! The process of hatching 2d sections of buildings would take a fraction of time with a plugin like the one you are developing (doing it by hand at the moment). The screenshot http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=38637&start=270#p365946 you released some time ago already made me drool

greetings, Max

Msketcher

I guess I'm just missing the point of the pattern/hatching tool in Layout, if you can only use it on shapes created in Layout. If you wanted to hatch a model that you brought in, you'd have to explode it which would eliminate the ability to update the model.

I guess I just don't use Layout shapes too much, so I've never had a need to apply hatching to them. Most of what I put in Layout are Sketchup models and annotations, so I'd just apply hatching as a material in Sketchup.

Confused...

Krisidious

@unknownuser said:

I guess I'm just missing the point of the pattern/hatching tool in Layout, if you can only use it on shapes created in Layout. If you wanted to hatch a model that you brought in, you'd have to explode it which would eliminate the ability to update the model.

I guess I just don't use Layout shapes too much, so I've never had a need to apply hatching to them. Most of what I put in Layout are Sketchup models and annotations, so I'd just apply hatching as a material in Sketchup.

Confused...

The main reason I do it it is because with your method you are left with raster images and not vector lines. I want vector.

ArCAD-UK

I appreciate your confusion Matt. I've just found myself completely reviewing my workflow for the 2013 release. Without getting bogged down in detail I have now resolved my LO layers from bottom to top to include 1.Views, 2. fills and 3. linework for producing sections.

Import the full section view onto layer 1. In SU create group from slice, save as component and import onto layer 3. and align with layer 1. Turn off layer 1. Switch to layer 2 and trace areas that need filled including masking parts of layer 1. Turn on layer 1. Job done. If you update the slice it is a quick operation to save it and the changes will normally be immediately obvious unless you are using black fills.

circus

Any one know how to decrease the line-weight/ Transparency of the LO hatch fills?

P.

Dave R

The hatch fills are image files. As such they don't really have a line weight to adjust. You could edit the fill image in an external image editor to adjust those things, though.

circus

Thanks, I assume I just lower the opacity in ps? will give it a go.

P.

Polzultov

In a similar vein, in Layout 2013, my pattern fills seems to become grey (lighter in value) the smaller they are rendered. For example, I'm importing a .bmp that's 425 x 283 at 120KB and in my Layout file, into a section detail that is 3" = 1'-0" scale, the pattern (hatch) is barely visible while viewing the page at full size. Should the pattern fills (all of them exhibit this including the default patterns) be black and white, not grey? Unless I set the pattern scale to 1.0x or higher, it can't be seen. And in details, many patterns need to be scaled down to .25 or lower to be seen. I guess the next step is to create my own, smaller, finer, greater resolution patterns... Am I missing something?

Dave R

The fills are just raster images so it shouldn't be surprising that they appear to get lighter the smaller they are on screen.

Polzultov

Thanks Dave-- I think I'll revert to the old, tried and true method of hatching by hand
on the print: won't take much time and it'll look fine.

Dave R

Most of my projects in which I need hatching require the hatches to be vector lines so I wind up making most of them in SketchUp as edges. I usually put them into LO as viewports separate from the model itself so I can control the appearance of the hatching separately.

ArCAD-UK

After crippling LO with large custom hatch pattern files I have spent some time reducing the file size with moderate success, they print well enough but the screen presentation when exported to PDF leaves a lot to be desired until you zoom right in to about 600% ! I may yet return to local vector hatch patching