PATGEN is a simple hatch pattern generator which allows the creation of new patterns without any knowledge of the description language used in AutoCAD PAT files. The user simply draws the pattern using AutoCAD entities, selects these entities, enters the U and V pattern vectors and finally names the new pattern. PATGEN can generate a hatch pattern from points, lines, polylines, arcs, circles, ellipses and splines. PATGEN is the only hatch pattern generator to allow the use of splines. Moreover, most similar tools use a square unit while PATGEN can generated any pattern based on a non-rectangular cell. The generated PAT file is saved in the user support directory. The filename is generated from the pattern name and the .PAT suffix. This is a condition for AutoCAD to load properly the pat file. The new hatch pattern appears in the custom patterns list and becomes the current hatch pattern right after its creation.
Generated hatch pattern
Basic options
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PATGEN command displays a dialog with the following options :
Select pattern sample : Click on the button to choose the AutoCAD entities which compose the hatch pattern. Draw unit vectors : Click on the button to define two non-colinear vectors U and V. Preview area : The preview area is updated each time the user selects objects or defines the pattern vectors. Name : The program suggests a default pattern name (e.g. Patgen04567). The user is free to choose another name instead. Description : You can enter an optional text description that will be saved in the PAT file. |
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Advanced options
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Curve resolution :
Number of divisions of curved objects (arcs, circles, ellipses, splines). Increasing this value improves the curvature but generates a slightly larger PAT file. Allowed values go from 4 to 64. The default value is 16. Tolerance value : This value is the percentage of distance approximation allowed during the conversion of the objects' geometry to PAT file format. Decreasing this value improves the pattern quality but requires from AutoCAD longer conversion time. Allowed values go from 0.01 to 0.1. The default value is set to 0.01 which produces the best quality. |
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Known limitation
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When using BHATCH command, the pattern preview does not appear properly but this has no effect on the final quality of the pattern. In order to avoid this, hatch patterns must be drawn inside a square area from 0,0 to point 1,1, with a pattern unit of 1x1.