Expert: Paul Jordan - 12/24/2009

Question
QUESTION: I have a problem with hatch displays in a file that contains 3d elements. On the 2d elements, if I hatch an area with the predefined gravel hatch, it will not display the gravel as a uniform pattern as in the swatch, BUT if i import the same hatch from another dwg that does display it correctly, it will show correctly alongside the hatch that I have drawn that is not displaying correctly. My hatch will also not adopt the correct display when match props is used. Ant ideas as why this is happening? I am using Acad 2009 with sp 1.

ANSWER: Hey Bob,

Without a better description of what the hatch is actually doing, I'd have to go to the old "hatch basepoint" issue.  It has to do with where your 0,0 is on the drawing itself.  If the area you're working on is pretty far away (as surveyors tend to do with real world coordinates for example) your concrete hatching can look like someone dropped a can of "Pick Up Sticks" on your hatch area.  

You can change the base point of your hatch and rehatch and all should come out fine...

If that's not the problem, let me know in more detail what it is your hatch work is actually doing.

Hope that helps,

Paul

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Paul.
I did find the answer accidentally. The answer is similar to yours but with a slight difference. (Your assumption that the hatch was looking like a pile of pick up sticks was spot on). I was not able to reset the ucs to a closer value due to the need for xrefs, so I played with the dialogue box settings. I found that I could reset the ucs for each hatch to something a lot closer (by clicking the set new origin box)which didn't change the world ucs. This cured the problem. Its seems each hatch (or those created after setting this point) can have an independent ucs.

Thanks all the same.  

Answer
Sounds like it worked great Bob.  To tell you the truth, I answered that one without even opening Autocad.  It's just one I've seen over the years and looks like they still haven't resolved the problem with it.  It also seems to happen to the concrete patterns most of all as well.

Glad I could spawn an idea for a solution at least.

Sometimes that's more fun than just reading an answer.

Paul