Hatching Techniques

Use this forum to ask questions about how to do things in the QCAD Community Edition.

Moderator: andrew

Locked
centec2b
Junior Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:10 am

Hatching Techniques

Post by centec2b » Sat May 02, 2009 12:56 am

I am running Professional 2.2.2.0 on Ubuntu. I am enjoying the the learning curve and find most controls very effective and easy to use.

But "Hatching" seems to be obtuse and hit and miss. My conclusion is therefore that there must be an easier way or techniques I do not know about that I need to learn

I have read through the forums and even googled the web but there does not seem to be a whole lot written on the subject.

I make a lot of use of single & parallel lines to get the shapes and then refine from there. I don't seem to be able to effectively and quickly create the contour as per step 1 of the help file

"...Prepare the entities that surround the hatching area so they form a closed contour. The contour must be closed in a way that one entity is connected to the next one as shown in the right sketch of Figure 45...."

Which is daft because the controls are there

I would be grateful for others experiences/guidance on how to use this feature

Cheers
centec2b

c64club
Registered Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:25 am

Post by c64club » Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:32 am

Hey.
I was fighting with hatch and found why qcad sometimes refuse to hatch some contour.
Every line of contour (arc, line etc) must connect both it's ends with two other lines of contour. Eg. if I had to draw a ladder. Done some long vertical line and attached 2 horizontal lines like here:

Code: Select all

|
|
|________
|________|
|
|
qcad doesn't treat this shape as contour. I had to add closing line that fits in the same place that the long one. Something like here:

Code: Select all

|
|
|
| _______
||_______|
|
Then I could match 4 lines around my shape and hatch them.

wookey
Newbie Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:15 pm

Post by wookey » Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:41 pm

OK thanks for that clue - that is most helpful.

I have had terrible trouble with this. Especially as I don't see how to easily determine which of several lines on top of each other one has selected. In a moderately complicated drawing hatching gets to be almost impossible.

It's fine to hatch a single rectangle you just drew, but as soon as you have lots of lines with adjacent objects comprising superimposed lines, or irregular shapes to hatch then it just never works. I have given up with hatching anything after wasting a lot of time on it.

I have the feeling that I am missing something as it can't really be this difficult can it?

User avatar
andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 9019
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:07 am

Post by andrew » Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:43 pm

You might want to create a separate layer for hatch boundaries and copy or draw all prepared, closed hatch boundaries on that layer. Hide the layer after hatching is completed.

wookey
Newbie Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 3:15 pm

Post by wookey » Fri Aug 13, 2010 2:02 am

That is excellent advice - suddenly I can do hatching all over - even fancy shapes. Thank you.

vkadal
Junior Member
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:31 pm

Post by vkadal » Sat Jun 04, 2011 6:42 am

First I was struggling with Hatch command. Before activating the Hatch command, chose the area you want to hatch by dragging the mouse and creating a window. Then chose the Hatch command. The closed area chosen by the window will be filled with Hatch pattern

Locked

Return to “QCAD Community 'How Do I' Questions”