Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published March 2012

Change the Quick Preview in Hatch to ‘No Islands’

“Live and Learn”. That's why I love training AutoCAD, because during any given month of training, I'm going to bump into another way of doing something. Such as hatching an object that has 'islands' in it, but more specifically, how to put it on a Tool Palette button.

Case in point, you place a rectangle/pline around an area on the floor plan that is, say, the Accounting Department. Now you want to hatch that area, but by default, when you hover in a closed area with furniture 'islands', the hatch goes around the furniture.

Driven from the Tool Palette, you will need 2 buttons. The first one will set the HPISLANDDETECTION variable to <2>, which means 'No Islands'. The second button you will need will be one with the hatch you want to place.

How to Automate a 'No Islands' Hatch

1. Open your Tool Palette (Ctrl + 3), then right-click on the title bar and click Customize Commands. This opens up a nominal view of the CUI.

2. Just above the Command list, click the button for Create A New Command. This will add Command 1 to the list of commands.

3. Now, drag Command 1 out of the list and drop it onto the palette. You will see a white box labeled Command 1.

4. Right-click on the Command 1 box, the click Properties and change the Command String to read as follows:

   ^C^CHPISLANDDETECTION;2

5. Change the name of your button to something like 'No Islands', then click OK to save your changes and close Properties.

   Now you'll want to draw a hatch on the desired layer with the settings you will want to use each time you hatch a Department or when you will want to select an object for hatching.

   

   In this exercise, I created a crosshatch pattern using the User Defined hatch pattern with a distance of 6″ at an angle of 45 degrees.

6. After configuring the hatch properties, add the hatch to your drawing.

7. After the hatch has been placed, click on the hatch to select it, then click on a line of the hatch and drag and drop it onto the tool palette.

At this point, the next time you have created a shape around an area in your drawing, and you want to hatch the shape and not go around the 'islands' in the drawing, click the No Islands button, then click your hatch button and add the hatch!

Note: Curiously, there is also the variable HPISLANDDETECTIONMODE which has a range of 0 or 1. I left this variable set to <1>. It relates to 'legacy island detection', so I'm going to have to dig into this one at a later date. Just FYI.

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