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Templates

Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing

TechDraw

Description

The TechDraw workbench includes two hatching tools:

• TechDraw Hatch (based on tiled SVG or bitmap images)
• TechDraw GeometricHatch (line based)

Image based hatch

TechDraw Hatch uses tiled SVG or bitmap (introduced in 0.21) images to cover the selected Face. The origin of the tiling grid will match the geometric center of the face.

SVG tiles are typically 64x64 pixel images. All pattern files that come with FreeCAD are available on GitHub.

Bitmap based patterns are displayed with a fixed resolution of 10 px/mm relative to the page.

The default hatch pattern file can be specified in the TechDraw Preferences.

Available SVG patterns

• 

  aluminium

• 

  brick01

• 

  concrete

• 

  cross

• 

  cuprous

• 

  diagonal1

• 

  diagonal2

• 

  earth

• 

  general_steel

• 

  glass

• 

  hatch45L

• 

  hatch45R

• 

  hbone

• 

  line

• 

  plastic

• 

  plus

• 

  simple

• 

  solid

• 

  square

• 

  steel

• 

  titanium

• 

  wood

• 

  woodgrain

• 

  zinc

Geometric hatch

TechDraw GeometricHatch forms a pattern of lines based on a specification read from a file. This file is generally compatible with the widely used AutoDesk® PAT format. A small selection of patterns is included in the FCPAT.pat file:

; standard PAT patterns

*Diamond, 45 diagonals L & R, Solid, 1.0 mm separation
45,0,0,0,1.0
-45,0,0,0,1.0
*Diamond2, 45 diagonals L & R, Solid, 2.0 mm separation
45,0,0,0,2.0
-45,0,0,0,2.0
*Diamond4, 45 diagonals L & R, Solid, 4.0 mm separation
45,0,0,0,4.0
-45,0,0,0,4.0
*Diagonal4, 45 diagonal R, Solid, 4.0 mm separation
45,0,0,0,4.0
*Diagonal5, 45 diagonal L, Solid, 4.0 mm separation
-45,0,0,0,4.0
*Square, square grid, Solid, 5.0 mm separation 
90,1,1,0,5.0
0,0,0,1,5.0
*Horizontal5, horizontal lines, Solid 5.0 separation
0,0,0,0,5.0
*Vertical5, vertical lines, Solid, 5.0 separation
90,0,0,0,5.0

You can add your own patterns if you have write permission to FCPAT.pat, or you can create your own *.pat file and point to it in TechDraw Preferences.

PAT File Path

The FCPAT.pat file can be found in the following location.

• Windows: C:\Program Files\FreeCAD\data\Mod\TechDraw\PAT\
• Mac: /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/Mod/TechDraw/PAT/
• Linux: /usr/share/freecad/Mod/TechDraw/PAT/
  • freecad-daily PPA: /usr/share/freecad-daily/Mod/TechDraw/PAT/

Templates

Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing

TechDraw