The AMCHATCH command enables you to mark areas for hatching at insertion time.
When you place a part/feature in a drawing or resize it, the marked area fills with the hatch pattern, regardless of the size of the area.
In the Content Editor, AutoCAD Mechanical toolset does not display a hatch pattern in the area marked for hatching. Instead, it shows the hatch marker icon (
) inside the boundary. It also displays the content array icon (
) in the drawing area, which acts as a “selector” for the hatch. For example, to examine properties of the hatch in the properties palette, it is this icon that you click. At the time you mark an area for hatching, AutoCAD Mechanical toolset prompts you to specify a location for the icon. You usually place it at a location that you can instinctively associate with the area marked for hatching.
By default, the Size Selection dialog box prompts you for the hatch parameters when you insert the part/feature in a drawing. If necessary, you can hide the parameters from the Size Selection dialog box and prevent it from prompting you at insertion time. You achieve this behavior by using one of the following techniques:
- You fix the values of hatch parameters by selecting them in the Parameters Manager and setting the Size Selection property to Fixed.
- You set up hatch parameters to derive values from the size by adding them to the Family Table as columns. Each row in the Family Table defines a unique member of the part family. You can specify different hatch parameter values for each row, and therefore, each size of the part family.