AutoCAD: No Fill on Polylines With Width

Note to self on the things to check when Polylines with width are unfilled:

• Check the current Visual Style. The 2D Wireframe Visual Style supports filled polylines; the Wireframe Visual Style does not. Other Visual Styles either do not support fill (such as Hidden or Sketchy), or will dim the fill (such as Shaded with Edges or Xray).
• Check your view direction. You will also need to know the plane in which the Polyline with width was drawn. For fill to display, the view direction needs to be perpendicular to the Polyline's plane. Set the current UCS so that the X-Y plane is the plane in which the Polyline was drawn, and then set the view direction to Top. Many times someone inadvertantly drags the View Cube ever so slightly away from "Top". It may be hard to tell from the View Cube or the drawing contents (no obvious forshortening), but if you look at the UCS icon, you will see an indication of the Z axis and if you look at the in-canvas controls at the upper left corner of the drawing canvas, the middle control will say Custom View instead of Top. Reset the view direction to Top.
• Check the setting of FILLMODE. If it is set to 0, reset it to 1. (To save keystrokes, you can also use the FILL command - turn fill On.) You will likely have to do a REGEN after changing the value to see the change on screen.

ACA: Property Set Definitions, Applies To - Just How Many Polyline Types Are There?

If you ever want to do any scheduling in AutoCAD^® Architecture that involves polylines, you will find that there are three different polyline types to which your Property Set Definition can apply. You could select all three, to be safe. Here is an explanation of what each type is, should you want to be more precise (or want to explicitly exclude any of the types).

1. Polyline: This choice applies to "modern," so-called "light-weight" LWPOLYLINEs. If you have PLINETYPE set to 1 or the default value of 2, then the PLINE command will make this type. (If it is set to 2, and you open an R14-format drawing (or older), any existing polylines will be converted to the the "new" format; if it is set to 1, existing polylines from R14 or older format drawings are not converted.)
2. Polyline (2D): This choice applies to the old format polylines. You have to set PLINETYPE to 0 to create new polylines in that format. Unless you have a compelling reason to do so, I would not recommend that. The LWPOLYLINE format results in smaller file sizes and faster processing.
3. Polyline (3D): This choice applies to 3D polylines created with the 3DPOLY command. Polylines created by the PLINE command are "flat" or 2D; all vertices have the same Z-coordinate in the UCS that was current at the time of creation, set by the first point selected. In a 3D polyline, the Z-coordinate of each vertex is independent of those of the other vertices.

If you select a polyline to which the Polyline choice applies, the Properties palette will show it as "Polyline" at the top. If you use the LIST command, it will indicate that it is a "LWPOLYLINE".

If you select a polyline to which the Polyline (2D) choice applies, the Properties palette will show it as "2D Polyline" at the top. If you use the LIST command, it will indicate that it is a "POLYLINE".

If you select a polyline to which the Polyline (3D) choice applies, the Properties palette will show it as "3D Polyline" at the top. If you use the LIST command, it will indicate that it is a "POLYLINE".

Here are the Automatic Properties that are available with each type. Note that the Polyline and Polyline (2D) have the same Automatic Properties; Polyline (3D) has some of the same, but lacks the Closed, Elevation and Thickness properties.