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Hatch a Face

In one sentence: Fills a closed face in a view with a repeating SVG hatch pattern — for section hatching and material-specific patterns.

Overview

Workbench: TechDraw
Menu: TechDraw → Hatching → Hatch a Face

This is the standard way to add section hatching (cross-hatching) to cut faces in section views, and to indicate material with standard hatch patterns.

Step-by-step

  1. Click a closed face in a view (it highlights).
  2. Choose TechDraw → Hatching → Hatch a Face.
  3. In the task panel, select an SVG hatch pattern file.
  4. Set the scale and rotation of the pattern.
  5. Click OK.

Bundled SVG hatch patterns

FreeCAD ships standard hatch patterns in <FreeCAD install>/Mod/TechDraw/Patterns/.

File Pattern
simple.svg Simple diagonal lines (ISO general hatching)
steel.svg Steel (diagonal, 45°)
aluminium.svg Aluminium (two sets of lines)
wood.svg Wood grain
concrete.svg Concrete (dot and dash)

Properties

Property Description
HatchPattern Path to the SVG pattern file
HatchScale Scale factor for the pattern repeat
HatchRotation Rotation of the pattern in degrees
HatchOffset Offset of the pattern origin
HatchColor Override the pattern colour

Python API

import FreeCAD as App

doc = App.ActiveDocument
page = doc.getObject("Page")
view = doc.getObject("SectionView")

hatch = doc.addObject("TechDraw::DrawHatch", "Hatch1")
hatch.Source = (view, ["Face1"])
hatch.HatchPattern = App.getResourceDir() + "Mod/TechDraw/Patterns/simple.svg"
hatch.HatchScale = 10.0
page.addView(hatch)
doc.recompute()

Common mistakes and pitfalls

Hatch pattern file paths are absolute

If you move the .FCStd file to another computer, hatch patterns stored with absolute paths may not be found. Use patterns from the bundled FreeCAD Patterns directory (accessed via relative App.getResourceDir()) rather than patterns stored in arbitrary locations.

See also