BrickBit
Turn brick dimensions and a bond pattern into a real AutoCAD hatch — in one dialog, with a live preview, and the correct scale every time.
How it works
A hatch pattern, built from real bricks
BrickBit writes a custom AutoCAD pattern file (.pat) from the brick size and bond you choose, then starts the hatch for you. No more fiddling with generic patterns that never match your masonry.
1. Enter the brick
Type the stretcher length and course height in millimetres — the way every brick is specified in a catalogue.
2. Pick a bond
Choose from ten masonry bonds. The live preview redraws instantly so you see the pattern before you commit.
3. Hatch it
BrickBit writes the .pat next to your drawing and launches the hatch at the right scale for your drawing units.
The dialog
Everything on one screen
No wizard, no steps to click through. Set the name, the brick size, the drawing unit and the bond — watch the preview — and press OK.
How to use
2. Enter the brick size (in mm)
3. Pick a bond, then OK to start hatch
Settings
Brick dimensions (mm) / Bond
Settings
The Hatch pattern name is what the .pat file is saved under, next to your drawing. Drawing in tells BrickBit your drawing's unit (mm, cm or m) so the hatch comes out at the right size — it's remembered between sessions.
Brick dimensions & bond
Length and height are always in millimetres, the way bricks are specified. The Bond dropdown picks the masonry pattern, and the preview beside it redraws instantly.
Live preview
The preview redraws as you type, showing the selected bond at the proportions of your brick. It is purely visual — it always reflects the millimetre input.
Help & OK
Help opens this guide. OK writes the pattern and starts the hatch command. Cancel closes without doing anything.
Units
Why a brick of 210 isn't always 210
A pattern file has no unit of its own — its numbers are read in drawing units. That one fact is the whole reason the "Drawing in" dropdown exists.
You enter a brick as 210 × 50 mm, because that is how bricks are specified everywhere. But AutoCAD reads the pattern in whatever unit your drawing uses. If your drawing is in centimetres and BrickBit wrote 210 directly, the brick would come out ten times too big — a 2.1 metre brick. The Drawing in setting fixes this by converting the millimetre input into your drawing's units before writing the pattern.
| You enter (mm) | Drawing in | Written to .pat | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 210 × 50 | mm | 210 × 50 | Correct (1 unit = 1 mm) |
| 210 × 50 | cm | 21 × 5 | Correct (1 unit = 1 cm) |
| 210 × 50 | m | 0.21 × 0.05 | Correct (1 unit = 1 m) |
Bond patterns
Ten masonry bonds
Each bond places the vertical (head) joints differently from course to course. Pick the one that matches your facade — the preview shows you exactly what you'll get.
Block bond
double stretcher
French bond
2 headers + stretcher
Stretcher bond
half-brick offset
Chain bond
2 stretchers + header
Raking bond
stretchers, 1/4 step
Header bond
all headers
Cross bond
crossing stretchers
Standing bond
aligned joints
Stack bond
aligned joints
Flemish bond
header + stretcher alt.
Workflows
Common tasks
Three short walkthroughs covering the everyday cases — your first hatch, changing dimensions, and getting the scale right.
From an open drawing with a closed boundary ready to fill.
- Type BRICKBIT at the command line to open the dialog.
- Give the pattern a unique name, e.g. facade_brick_v1.
- Enter the brick size in millimetres — for a standard brick, 210 length and 50 height.
- Set Drawing in to match your drawing (mm, cm or m).
- Pick a bond pattern and check the live preview.
- Press OK. BrickBit writes the .pat next to your drawing and starts the hatch — pick a point inside your boundary to fill it.
AutoCAD keeps pattern definitions in memory once they're loaded, which can trip you up when you re-run with new dimensions.
- Run BRICKBIT again with your new dimensions.
- Give the pattern a new, unique name (e.g. add _v2, _v3). BrickBit warns you if the name already exists in the folder.
- Press OK and hatch as usual.
If a hatch comes out far too large or too small, the drawing unit is almost always the cause.
- Check the Drawing in setting against your actual drawing units. A brick that's ten times too big means it's set to mm while you draw in cm.
- Re-run BrickBit with the correct unit and a fresh pattern name.
- Re-hatch. The brick should now read at real-world size.
Bigger picture
CompanionBits
BrickBit is part of the CompanionBits suite for AutoCAD. Every tool solves one problem — completely.
HatchBit
Scales any hatch pattern independently in X and Y and moves the origin without losing the scale. The ideal companion when a bond doesn't quite fit.
LevelBit
Places elevation markers that recalculate themselves. Pick a reference point, click where you want a height, and the text is always correct.
SlopeBit
Draws smooth contour lines with Catmull-Rom smoothing and automatic arrows on the longest edge. Works in AutoCAD and LT.
QuickLister
Scan zones in your drawing and generate legends that stay in sync. Hatches, symbols, linetypes and references — one scan, every legend, always current.
All tools work independently and install as a single bundle. One licence per tool — only pay for what you use.
Ready to try BrickBit?
Create real brick hatches from millimetre dimensions and a bond of your choice — at the correct scale, every time. A free SnipBit from CompanionBits.