New Pattern Fill feature in Layout

ArCAD-UK · 27 May 2013, 21:47

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 · 18 Jun 2013, 04:15

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

P.

Dave R · 18 Jun 2013, 11:37

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 · 21 Jun 2013, 00:47

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

P.

Polzultov · 20 Oct 2013, 03:24

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 · 20 Oct 2013, 03:39

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 · 20 Oct 2013, 14:18

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 · 20 Oct 2013, 14:54

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 · 20 Oct 2013, 16:59

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