Siding Hatch Pattern
Accepted solution
@Anonymous
Welcome to the community!
Is this what you are trying to achieve? (Lines separated by alternating distances of 5" and 7".)
If so, this will do the trick:
*5_7_reveal, siding 0, 0,0, 0,12 0, 0,5, 0,12
There are two sets of horizontal (angle 0) parallel lines, with a 12" spacing between items in each set. One set of lines starts at 0,0; the other at 0,5, giving the 5-7-5-7... spacing. I am uncertain what you expected the , 4,0 at the end of your line definitions to do; the sixth and subsequent numbers are used to define dash/dot patterns, but without a negative number to provide a "pen up" segment (gap), you will just get a continuous line. If a continuous line is the goal, then you can just omit anything after the fifth number.
You want lines spaced at alternating amounts of 5" and 7". The pattern repeats every 12", with two lines in every repeat: one at +0" and one at +5" (since the first gap is 5").
So the first pair of lines starts at 0", with lines at 0" and 5". The second pair of lines is offset 12" from the first pair, with lines at 12" and 17". The third pair of lines starts at 24", with lines at 24" and 29". The fourth pair of lines starts at 36", with lines at 36" and 41". And so on....
If you jump 17" from the second line, you get a line at 24", but you already have a line there from the first line, on its second repeat, so you have two, coincidental lines there. Then you get a line at 41", but you do not get a line at 29".
For parallel line patterns like this, once you have the lines for one repeat defined, the offsets for all of them will be for the total distance of the pattern repeat. The exception would be if within the overall larger repeat (say at 24"), there is a set of lines that repeats at some even fraction of the overall pattern (say 8"). In those cases, while you could define separate lines and repeat them at the overall repeat, it is more efficient to define one line at the smaller, even fraction repeat (in the hypothetical example here, one line at 8" rather than three lines at 24").
In case the massive block of text in my previous post caused your brain to seize up, perhaps this image will help. The red lines represent the lines defined by the line starting at 0,0; the yellow lines represent the lines defined by the line starting at 0,5. The dimensions show the 12" repeat.
Your pattern code works fine, here.
Make sure in your PAT file that you have a return at the end of the last line (in other words, a blank line at the end of the file), and that the file name is T1-11.pat. I attached the file I made from the text you posted. in a ZIP file, since files with PAT extensions appear to be a problem for this forum. ("The attachment's t1-11.pat content type (application/octet-stream) does not match its file extension and has been removed.")