Custom Hatch pattern in Revit

Revit allows AutoCAD hatches to be used. The AutoCAD hatch pattern files have an extension 'pat'. They are just text files. They can be opened in a text editor like notepad. Like this Brick Flemish bong hatch.

*Brick_Flemish, Brick: Modular - Flemish bond
0, 0,0, 0,2.666666666
90, 0,0, 2.666666666,6, 2.666666666,-2.666666666
90, 4,0, 2.666666666,6, 2.666666666,-2.666666666

You can modify that to:

*Brick_Flemish, Brick: Modular - Flemish bond
;%TYPE=MODEL
0, 0,0, 0,2.666666666
90, 0,0, 2.666666666,6, 2.666666666,-2.666666666
90, 4,0, 2.666666666,6, 2.666666666,-2.666666666

'save as' for Revit. To create a Drafting pattern, you enter ";%TYPE=DRAFTING" instead of ;%TYPE=MODEL.

You can import this pat file from the property dialog box of any Filled Pattern

or from Settings menu > Fill Patterns...

Filled Region not transparent

One of the nice features in Revit, is to be able to make a filled region (hatch) transparent or opaque. This option is in the type properties of the filled region.

However, one of our users complained that the filled region was NOT transparent even after setting this setting. See pic below. I was of the opinion that it was a display issue because of 'not enough memory'

However, after sometime, she realized that the view was in 'wireframe' mode and once she changed this to 'Hidden', the filled region behaved correctly. See pic below. Seems a bit counter intuitive (things should be transparent in wireframe and vice versa!) but ironically this works like this in both revit architecture 2008 and revit architecture 2009.

CAD Hatch not printing in Revit 2008

There are some issues in Revit with CAD Hatches. If the hatches are not bound correctly in cad or if they dont have any boundaries, Revit does not like it. Sometimes Revit shows it correctly, but whey you print it, it does not print all the hatch objects. The current workaround is to print the revit view using the "Raster processing" option