Display Themes and Hatch Objects

[FitzUS]

I've been using Display Themes on spaces and they seem to work fairly well.  Now I am trying to use them with standard AutoCAD hatch objects and they don't seem to have any effect.

Our consultant has use AutoCAD hatch objects to define areas within a floor plan.  I've created manual property set definitions that allow assigning a department name to each hatch.  Works great in scheduling the areas, but now I want to have the hatches display differently in different viewports.  AutoCAD help files indicate that PSD must be attached to the "objects" but does not say only AutoCAD Architecture objects.  Can Display Themes be used on every day AutoCAD objects, such as hatches, lines, etc?

My workaround is dividing the hatches on to different layers and then using the VPLayer color to override in each viewport.  I'd rather use a display them so I don't create superfluous layers.

[BillGlennie]

Display Themes can only control the display of objects that have representations in the AEC Display System.  That does not include any standard AutoCAD objects.  You could use AEC Polygons to have a 2D "boundary with hatch" that would react as expected to the Display Theme.  Creating them from the existing hatches will require several steps.  If there is not a polyline that forms the boundary, one will need to be generated from the hatch.  Then the AECPolygon > Convert command can be applied to the polylines.  Your existing property set definition could be extended to include AecPolygons, but you would need to assign the desired Name property to each one after conversion. 

Let me know if you need additional information.

Thanks

[FitzUS]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.  The help documents for display themes don't make that point very clear.

I am using hatches with PSD's attached because my consultant uses basic AutoCAD to divy up the spaces.  I work for the development team of a property owner.  I am trying to set up methods where we we can extract information data from the CAD plans and I've attached the PSD's to the hatches.

AEC Polygons could do the trick as the hatches are all bounded by plines, but it seems I need to convert them first before attached the PSD's.  Not sure if Autodesk is interested in creating conversion techniques that will carry over the PSD information but it might relate to a problem I had when AEC Spaces were updated by intersecting polylines.  You can read some of the feed back I got from experts who were more knowledgeable than I.  It seems it would be helpful to have this feature.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Architecture/Disappearing-Tags/m-p/4904580#M14503

Thanks again,

Tom