AutoCAD Tip – Fixing Problematic Hatch patterns in drawings with large coordinates

by Dennis Collin

Hatching objects frequently gives users problems, from refusing to hatch completely to display rather bizarre artifacts when working with drawings with very large coordinates. This is particularly true with Site Plans and Civil Engineering drawings. The concrete hatch pattern is a typical culprit. Notice the shattered appearance of what should be neat triangles representing a concrete fill.

Fig. Problematic hatching note the disjointed concrete shape patterns.

This issue is caused by having a drawing a long way away from the WCS origin. The drawing needs to be in that location to relate correctly to a national coordinate datum. The answer is to set the hatch location to a local point near to or within the area which will make the hatch object display as expected.

Once a local point is selected, for example a corner of the concrete region, the hatch object should display as per the image below.

Fig. Success! The Hatch pattern displays as expected!