I would like to use some simple hatch patterns (materials) such as some of the traditional drafting hatches representing insulation, sand, concrete, earth, etc. Does anyone know of a source for hatches like that for Sketchup?
My 2d Tools has a set of CAD-like hatching patterns.
There are others around too… if you search…
You just need appropriate images to use as textures for new materials…
1 Like
thanks. That is very helpful.
I’m curious why you made it part of a plugin rather than just a package of textures?
We made a plugin Skalp for Sketchup (www.skalp4sketchup.com) which is a live section tool. A feature of this plugin is a pattern designer which creates tileable textures from autocad pattern files.
There is a list of available hatch patterns in this section Tips & Tricks.
1 Like
Hi all,
is there any way to fill SketchUp surfaces with vector-based hatching (which doesn’t get pixelated when printing or exporting)?
Short answer: Not without drawing edges. You could draw hatch patterns as sort of wireframe structures and place them over the model as appropriate.
Thanks. Not even with one of the methods mentioned over there?
https://sites.google.com/site/sketchupsage/tips-tricks/work-other-programs#TOC-CAD-ish-convention-for-SketchUp-modeling
It sounds as if Hatchfaces and/or Skalp could do it?
I believe Skalp uses raster images for hatching. The examples available from the link on the SketchUp Sage page are indeed raster images.
HatchFaces may work for you. It’s basically doing what I mentioned above. It’s an old extension so you can give it a try and see if it’ll work. According to the Author’s post it was only tested with version 7 and 8.
Thank you. It seems that I can’t use HatchFaces in SU2018 because it does not seem to accept *.rb files.
OTOH, Skalp seems to create vector hatches, at least when exporting to DXF:
I would however rather export to PDF and also have vector hatchings in the resulting PDF file.
SketchUp 2018 does accept .rb files but you have to install them manually. Alternatively you could pack the .rb file into a ZIP file, rename it to .rbz and install using Install Extension from the Extension Manager. It may still not work, though. There’ve been updates to Ruby which that plugin may not have received.
Why not use LayOut, then? If you render your viewports with Vector or Hybrid, lines will be vector lines.
Thanks will try that.
Yeah lines, but hatch patterns will not.
Unless a PDF file is used for post processing in a vector drawing package (like Adobe Illustrator) I see little advantage to whether its contents are vector- or raster-based. You can avoid a pixelated look by using high quality textures and the “high” output resolution option.
I was referring to using drawn hatch patterns, not raster patterns.
Pardon? That’s what my question is about – but there are no “drawn hatch patterns” anywhere in SketchUp (unless drawn by hand line by line).
Yeah, there will be post-processing of these PDF files. But thanks for the high quality textures idea. That actually could do it for a start, until a vector solution is found.
Which is why I wrote:
If you could find vector CAD files of the hatches, you could import them into Sketchup or LayOut.
How can I fill random surfaces in SU with a drawn hatch pattern? Possibly even warped (non-flat) faces?
It’s going to be a challenge but you could create a component of the pattern that is larger than the surface you want to apply it to and trim it to match. For curved surfaces I suppose you could use Drape from the Sandbox tool. I personally think getting vector hatching in SketchUp is likely more work than it’s worth but if you’re dead set on having vector edges for hatching, I guess you do what you have to do. When I answered your question initially, I was tempted to just tell you no, it’s not possible and leave it at that. Maybe it’s my mistake for not doing that. I was just trying to give you an option.
Thanks. There still seems to be the Skalp way of doing it though. Will check that out (and HatchFaces).
What did you end up doing to produce your desired outcome? I have tried hatchfaces myself but have encountered some annoying issues with surfaces being made non coplanar resulting in broken lines or the hatch not appearing at all.