Hatching and Fills

TPC allows you to fill drawing objects like circles, rectangle and polylines, plus traverses themselves. You can choose from solid fills, patterns or bitmaps.

Filling Objects

You can fill an object by choosing a fill type from the object’s properties dialog.

Solid Fill

The solid fill uses the current color to fill the object. Solid fills are transparent. If you have darker objects like text in the filled area, it will be visible through the fill.

Pattern Fill

The Pattern fill uses the current color to fill the object with the pattern. Pattern fills include Horizontal, Vertical, Diagonal (forward), Diagonal (backward), Cross and Diagonal Cross. Pattern fills are transparent. If you have darker objects like text in the filled area, it will be visible through the fill.

As you zoom in or change scale, the pattern’s size does not change.

Bitmap Fill

Bitmap fills do not use the current color. Their colors are defined within the bitmaps themselves. They also do not change size when you zoom in or change scale.

Unlike Solid and Pattern fills, Bitmap fills are opaque. You cannot see other objects through a bitmap fill.

To add your own bitmap fill, edit the TpcFills.dat file in the program folder. The file is self documented, explaining how to add your own fill to TPC.

AutoCAD Hatching

If TPC can write a fill as a hatch type when it exports a DWG or DXF file, it appends an asterisk ‘*’ to the fill name. To the Vertical* fill can be exported to AutoCAD.

TPC stores the fill definitions in the TpcFills.dat file in the program folder. Each fill can contain the name of an equivalent AutoCAD hatch pattern. TPC stores the AutoCAD hatch definitions in the TPC.pat file in the program folder. The TpcFills.dat file has more information on AutoCAD hatching.

Adding Fills to a Legend

You can add any fill to a legend. Just right click the legend and choose Append Fill Item To Legend… TPC displays the Fill Type dialog. Select the fill type and color.

Filling Traverses

You can fill any traverse using the traverse settings. Just right click any object drawn by the traverse and choose Traverse Settings. Then choose a fill type from the Control tab.

Related Topics

Filling a Traverse
Adding a Fill to a Legend
Fill Type dialog
Append Fill Item to Legend Command
Modifying Fill Types
Adding and Removing Fill Types

Editions

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