Hello,
I am using MicroStation v8i SS4.
Trying to build custom hatch patterns as cells. I am having issues getting two overlapping patterns to work. I have one pattern as cross hatch lines, and another pattern as sand, which appears as random points. The sand pattern is coming from the acad.pat file, but the cell is drafted in MicroStation, with a defined level. I have the cross hatch working, but the overlapping sand pattern does not appear, and all levels are turned-on. In getting the hatch to work, I have had to compress both the cell file and the destination file, renamed cell model a few times. but nothing I do allows the second, overlapping hatch pattern to appear. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated, as several of my custom cell patterns involve overlapping hatch.
When creating your custom hatch cells, you may want to drop each nested pattern cell to elements, so that your new pattern cell has only elements (and not a number of nested cells). Especially when dealing with multiple types of pattern libraries (CEL vs PAT).
You can nest cells, but I've always found predictability to be best when the nested cells are dropped when they are placed to be part of another cell definition.
MaryB
Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918Power InRoads 08.11.09.918OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2
Mary,
I selected all the pattern shapes defined by the "sand" hatch and dropped all to geometry and a second time to segments. All the patterns are on a defined level, not default. I renamed the cell model, compressed cell library and compressed the destination dgn file. But still do not see the overlapping "sand" pattern. Perhaps I should trace over all the sand pattern shapes with Microstation circles to avoid acad.pat geometry?
Is your "sand" cell comprised of zero length lines?
For historical reasons zero length line elements are used to denote the extents of a pattern cell for tiling and are never displayed.
Most pattern cells with dots use zero length 2 point linestring elements instead of line elements (i.e. place lstring).
HTH
-B
Answer Verified By: CADTech1
Brien,
Thanks for that feedback. I know the elements from the "sand" hatch show as "point" in the element information dialog. I thought that I may have to use MicroStation circles to use in place of the point element. But I have also used concrete hatch in past, with no troubles, which has many of the same point elements. I will try some other element in lieu of point.