Starting from AutoCAD 2005, it became acceptable to hatch an area with a small opening. Before this it was a prerequisite to be fully closed.

AutoCAD comes with a good number of generic, predefined hatch patterns saved in a file called acad.pat. You can also buy other hatch patterns from third-party vendors, who can be found on the Internet.

Hatch, like any other object, should be placed in a separate layer.

There are two methods to hatch in AutoCAD, an old one (Bhatch command) and a new one (Tool Palette). We will start with the old one.

This is the old method of hatching in AutoCAD.

Issue the command using one of the following ways:

• From the dashboard and using the 2D Draw toolbar, locate the small triangle on the right, click and hold it, then select the Hatch button.

  

• From menus select Draw/Hatch.

• Type bhatch (or bh) in the Command window.

The following dialog box will appear:

Under the Hatch tab, select the Type pop-up list. You will get the following choices:

• User defined.

• Predefined.

• Custom.

The most simple hatch pattern is parallel lines. Once this option is selected the following parameters will be valid:

• Swatch, to specify the color of the hatch. We prefer to keep it BYLAYER, as discussed previously.

• Angle, the angle of the parallel lines.

• Spacing, the distance between two parallel lines.

• Double, which means...