Make .PAT files

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Clive
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Make .PAT files

Post by Clive » Tue Oct 21, 2014 4:34 pm

Okay so I've made my own medieval roof tile patterns. Is it possible to have a script to convert these to a .PAT file and use them in QCAD?

I have talked about PAT files and Hatches before but I don't really want to use another program to do this.
Roof Tiles.png
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andrew
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Re: Make .PAT files

Post by andrew » Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:40 am

It's not that easy, I'm afraid.
Autocad PAT files have quite a unique format. In a nutshell, a hatch pattern is defined from straight lines with different kinds of dash patterns. So every line, at every angle has to repeat itself after some gap. Some kind of pattern editor or creator would be cool to have for QCAD, but it's not a top priority at the moment. There are other utilities to create PAT files, but typically quite expensive AFAIK.

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Clive
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Re: Make .PAT files

Post by Clive » Thu Oct 23, 2014 8:54 am

Andrew, thanks no problem.

The next best thing then would be a new 'Multi Breakout Tool' any updates for this request:

http://www.qcad.org/bugtracker/index.ph ... ask_id=786

At least user defined patterns could be pasted where needed and then edited.
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andrew
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Re: Make .PAT files

Post by andrew » Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:09 am

Clive wrote:The next best thing then would be a new 'Multi Breakout Tool' any updates for this request:
I'm afraid not. I'm busy these days mostly with custom software development for specific customers. However, some of this new functionality is also going into main stream QCAD.
A hatch pattern creation tool would be a great project for someone from the QCAD community to implement. But contrary to popular belief, developers aren't exactly queuing up to contribute to open source projects ;)

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Clive
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Re: Make .PAT files

Post by Clive » Thu Oct 23, 2014 11:03 am

Oh I see, well you have to earn a living so it's good you have plenty of work, best wishes for that.
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Clive
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Re: Make .PAT files

Post by Clive » Thu Oct 23, 2014 4:34 pm

Just had a thought about this ... would it be possible to have an option to change the cursor size and shape (I'm thinking Circle as well as cross) when in 'Breakout' mode, this I hope wouldn't be too difficult to implement and would be really useful for cleaning up when using the Breakout tool?

I know I've changed direction in this thread but it's still very much related :wink:
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