How to fill (Paint) an area

I am really coming to grips with this application and IMHO I have achieved a lot in a few days and I am sure that the application is going to provide me with a valuable resource that I need for my hobby of Model Engineering. I really appreciate the help from this forum.

Now I would like to be able to fill an area (that is bounded by lines) with colour. Is this possible and if so can someone point me in the right direction.

Yep, LibreCAD is a good little 'free' program and as you say ideal for your hobby.

Use the 'Create Hatch' tool from the left-hand set of general CAD tools. Simply select the solid fill option and hey voila - all done, just remember to select a 'connected' boundary first and as usual follow the prompts...and the continue arrows - ha ha.

Good luck.

Hello arct and thank you for replying but I have not been very successful.

After quite a bit of experimenting it appears that the area that is to be coloured, even though it is enclosed by lines, it must not have any lines extending beyond the enclosed area which means I need another layer and draw the lines from intersection to intersection so that no lines extend beyond the area to be enclosed.

Before I spend a lot of time doing above, can you please confirm that there is not an easier way of doing this?

Yes this is expected behavior, in order to hatch successfully there needs to be a 'closed' contour/boundary. Lines just crossing over each other do not form this closed contour because the end points of the lines do not meet.
As you say you can work on different layers to achieve what you want or another way of doing this would be to draw a polyline for the needed contour and add extra lines where needed afterwards!
You could also use the Modify > Divide tool to edit things but this would take time to do...no, I think for me I would use a polyline or an extra layer.

Is there any analogue to AutoCAD's "boundary" command, which does in fact allow one to "fill" an area enclosed by crossing lines/shapes (you click in the enclosed area, just like a Paint Bucket tool)?  I know 'hatch' is not exactly that, since it fills an object, not any shape visible in the view.

I have personally found that the Boundary command is the most useful command, since it is much simpler than boolean operations, and simple to use.

I am a newbie with librecad.
I have been searching everywhere to find how I can change the white solid color in the hatch to another color
The closest i could find was:
Quote:
Create Hatch' tool from the left-hand set of general CAD tools
Unquote

But that did not help me at all. I could not find the "Create Hatch" function anywhere.
Can you please help me

Best regards
Arne essa Madsen

"Attributes"

You may try: Tools > Modify > Attributes

arne essa wrote

I am a newbie with librecad.
I have been searching everywhere to find how I can change the white solid color in the hatch to another color
The closest i could find was:
Quote:
Create Hatch' tool from the left-hand set of general CAD tools
Unquote

But that did not help me at all. I could not find the "Create Hatch" function anywhere.
Can you please help me

Best regards
Arne essa Madsen

arne essa wrote

I could not find the "Create Hatch" function anywhere.

Hatch is also available in the Tools ->Dimension -> Hatch (2.2.1) or Tools-> Hatch (2.1.3) menu in case you don't have it as an icon on the left.
Check also Tools -> Modify -> Properties to change the pattern of the hatch

Currently, hatch only from closed loops of edges:

1, each edge must be a complete line, arc, circle, elliptical arc, or an eclipse;
2, for circle, ellipse cases, each complete curve defines a loop;
3, for non-cosed curves, each loop must be formed by joining start/end point of edges;
4, no loop crossing: a loop cannot cross itself or another loop;
5, a loop may touch another loop;
6, sharing start/end points between two loops is allowed.

We may want to support enclosed areas of selected curves, but there's no developer working on it, as far as i am aware of.

demis wrote

Is there any analogue to AutoCAD's "boundary" command, which does in fact allow one to "fill" an area enclosed by crossing lines/shapes (you click in the enclosed area, just like a Paint Bucket tool)?  I know 'hatch' is not exactly that, since it fills an object, not any shape visible in the view.

I have personally found that the Boundary command is the most useful command, since it is much simpler than boolean operations, and simple to use.