How to Prevent Crashes and Improve Auto-Hatching Results

This page is in response to this recent query.

We have been using gCADplus for a few years now and are enjoying the outcomes.

One thing I’ve noticed that doesn’t work quite well for me is the auto-hatching (pick a point).

Sometimes it works a treat. But typically, on larger designs (large grass areas) and designs with lots of curves, it tends to crash the program, and I lose any unsaved work. I do make sure that all of the intercepting line type vertices are connected in hopes that it might help.

Is there an update or more tips you may be able to share?

We are aware of the issue that you have raised. We have had several reports that gCADPlus may crash when hatching. This can occur due to several problems, including corrupted drawing files, outdated graphics drivers, or geometry far from the origin. Our programmers have added some code to catch errors and provided some pop-up warnings when, for example, the hatching scale is too fine for a successful hatch, but when we examine drawing a design file, the circumstances of each crash instance are different, so there is no easy fix for this.

Here is a short video demonstrating an example of gCADPlus crashing when hatching a lawn area. This video responds to a viewer’s enquiry about issues with the SmartHatch tool in gCADPlus. Our viewer wrote: “We’ve been using gCADPlus for a few years now and love the results. However, the auto-hatching (pick a point) feature doesn’t always work for us. It performs well on smaller areas, but when we try it on larger landscape designs or drawings with many curves, the program sometimes crashes, and we lose unsaved work.”

In this tutorial, we explain how the SmartHatch tool functions — radiating out from a nominated point to detect boundaries and create closed polylines — and why it can occasionally fail when surrounded by complex geometry, such as exploded hatch patterns. We also provide several practical tips to avoid crashes and maintain a smooth workflow, including: 🌿 Simplifying boundaries before hatching, 🧩 avoiding exploded hatch entities, and 💾 Saving your work before applying SmartHatch. Whether you’re new to gCADPlus or an experienced user, these insights will help you use SmartHatch with confidence and produce clean, professional hatching in your landscape design drawings.

Tips to avoid crashes while hatching using the SmartHatch tool

Save the design before applying a complex hatch pattern.
Take a moment to think about the area that’s about to be hatched. If it is defined by complex geometry, ensure that the drawing is saved before starting the hatch operation.
Make sure that you are using an appropriate hatch pattern file.
Use a new layer, perhaps called TEMP and move any entities crowding the hatch area to that layer, freeze the TEMP layer and then apply the hatch.

Autodesk, the publisher of AutoCAD, report similar issues. Here is a link to their ‘white paper’ on the topic.

You can try some of their suggestions, including purging the drawing, installing graphics driver updates, moving geometry closer to the origin, or disabling hardware acceleration.