Converting pathces to ascii using mris_convert with
% mris_convert -p rh.temp.patch.flat rh.temp.patch.flat.asc
seems to give incorrect topology in the ascii patch (the triangles are "messed up"). I loaded the asc patch into tksurfer, and also converted it back to binary and loaded it in tksurfer. Both have the same problem. The original binary flat patch is fine. I can upload the surfaces if that would be helpful. Runninng Mac OSX 10.3.6.
thanks Rutvik