XY Rotation: is 45 degree rotation the only viable option for Symbol fill styles?

Lillhans

Beyond a certain size of the polygon, the pattern no longer can accomodate rotation (seen here, a 60 degree angle of the Gres Symbol fill style)

Is there a workaround I am missing? (have checked the tome, but alas!)

Loopysue

I discovered this limitation a while back, but since I was only modifying a really old map and was able to fudge a solution I didn't really bother with it.

I think it's just one of those things with these old style fills, but that's like making an open invitation for someone else to come along and prove me wrong ;)

jslayton

The limitation with Symbol Fills that you're seeing here is that the placement grid isn't rotated, just the individual symbols. To avoid strange overlaps and gaps, you need to keep the rotation to a multiple of 90 degrees and use square symbols unless you're willing to do some extra work with the spacing fields to tighten things up. Try setting the "Sample Width" field to a value that's larger than the fill style to see how things will look when placed.

I wouldn't recommend using fill styles other than solid, hollow, and the bitmap fills at this point in time. Brush patterns are a raster operation that doesn't scale and whose appearance depends on the output device resolution, Scaleable Hatching says in the documentation "Scaleable hatch patterns should only be used when outputting to pen plotters" plus seem to have some odd behaviors, and Symbol Fills have very limited degrees of freedom in addition to vector requirements. Like SHX fonts, FNT fonts, and pen width, the Brush patterns, Scaleable Hatching, and Symbol Fills are likely to disappear from convenient places in the GUI at some point in the future.

Loopysue

I discovered this limitation a while back, but since I was only modifying a really old map and was able to fudge a solution I didn't really bother with it.

I think it's just one of those things with these old style fills, but that's like making an open invitation for someone else to come along and prove me wrong ;)

Lillhans

Meant 90 degrees of course. Allrightie then!

jslayton

The limitation with Symbol Fills that you're seeing here is that the placement grid isn't rotated, just the individual symbols. To avoid strange overlaps and gaps, you need to keep the rotation to a multiple of 90 degrees and use square symbols unless you're willing to do some extra work with the spacing fields to tighten things up. Try setting the "Sample Width" field to a value that's larger than the fill style to see how things will look when placed.

I wouldn't recommend using fill styles other than solid, hollow, and the bitmap fills at this point in time. Brush patterns are a raster operation that doesn't scale and whose appearance depends on the output device resolution, Scaleable Hatching says in the documentation "Scaleable hatch patterns should only be used when outputting to pen plotters" plus seem to have some odd behaviors, and Symbol Fills have very limited degrees of freedom in addition to vector requirements. Like SHX fonts, FNT fonts, and pen width, the Brush patterns, Scaleable Hatching, and Symbol Fills are likely to disappear from convenient places in the GUI at some point in the future.

Loopysue

Would a comprehensive set of transparent bitmap fills that adequately simulate the effect of the hatched fills be a good idea, I wonder?

Lillhans

I think it would @Loopysue

Not giving up on getting creative just yet, though :D

jslayton

If your symbol pattern is sufficiently large, then tiling becomes less important.