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Hatch text editorWhat's a good text editor for hatch patterns?While HatchKit can read most hatch patterns, some files require repair before loading. For example this pattern lacks a crucial decimal point from the last number of the first line: *lath,Lath, mesh, grating 0,0,0,.5,.1666666667,.3333333333,-6666666667 135,0,0,.23570226,-.23570226,.23570226,-.4714045208 225,0,0,-.23570226,-.23570226,.23570226,-.4714045208 Notepad is fine for simple work but is not much help when there is a format problem within the pattern file. Checking that each line is within the maximum allowable line length, is properly terminated and does not contain unwanted characters are not easy tasks for Notepad. Fortunately there are many fine programmers' text editors available. PSPad for example can show raw file format, a vertical line at 80 characters and enforce proper line termination - as well as providing other useful tools such as a text file compare. Most systems use straight ASCII with each line terminated by a carriage return and a linefeed character. Earlier versions of AutoCAD did not enforce line termination quite as strictly as ACAD2007 and later. There are exceptions - for instance Alibre employs UTF-16. Later versions of TurboCAD employ ASCII within compressed XML. The essential requirement is to keep the text recognisable by the CAD package. Avoid wordprocessors such as MS Word or Wordpad. |
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