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Toolbar: Render > Materials (
Menu: View > Render > Materials.
Keyboard: MATERIALS.
Alias: RMAT.
The Material Assignment window allows you to specify the material that will be assigned to different surfaces in the drawing and how those materials will be mapped to the surface. A number of predefined materials are available that include different color patterns and surface finishes. In addition, a Materials Editor is available which allows you to modify the predefined materials or create new ones.
Materials can be assigned to either individual drawing entities, to drawing layers, or to drawing colors. When rendering an entity, first material properties are retrieved for that entity if they exist. If no material assignment has been made for that entity, then material properties are retrieved for the layer on which that entity resides. If no material assignment has been made for the layer, then material properties associated with the drawing color are used. Finally if no material properties have been assigned to that color, then the entity is rendered using the DEFAULT material properties and the drawing color that it has been assigned.
The Material Assignment window includes two different tabbed worksheets and a preview area as illustrated below. The first tab is entitled Material Library and allows you to select from among a variety of predefined materials. The second tab is titled Material Mapping and controls how the material is mapped to the surfaces in the drawing.
After you issue the Materials command you will be prompted to choose whether you'd like to specify materials for a set of drawing entities, for a particular drawing layer, or for a particular drawing color. The prompt line, as shown below, will read "Assign materials to: <Selection>/Layer/Color/Browse:". You can either type in Selection, Layer, or Color; or you can click on the corresponding options on the popup menu that will appear (you can type the letters 's', 'l', or 'c' as shortcuts for selection, layer, or color). The default value is Selection, so if you would like that choice, you can just press enter. The Browse option allows you to look at and edit the materials library without affecting any material assignments.
To assign materials to a selection of drawing entities, you must designate to which entities you'd like to make the assignment. If any entities are already selected when you issue the materials command, the materials will be assigned to those entities and the Materials Properties window will appear immediately. If no entities are selected, then a prompt, "Select entities:", will appear and allow you to select an entity or group of entities. Once you have selected one or more enties, you can then type the "Enter" key to confirm your selection and then the Materials Properties window will appear. After you have made your material selection using the Materials Properties window and then click on the OK button, your material selections will be applied to all of the drawing entities selected.
To assign materials to a layer, you must choose to which layer you'd like to make the assignment. A selection dialog box as shown below will appear and you can select a layer by clicking on the layer.
Once you have clicked on the layer of interest, the Materials Assignment window will appear and enable you to assign the desired material to the chosen layer. Once you've done that you will return to the Select Layer dialog again. When you have completed assigning materials to the various layers in the drawing, you can click the Done button to return to the drawing.
To assign materials to a drawing color, you must choose to which color you'd like to make the assigment. The color chooser, shown below, is similar to the normal progeCAD color selection dialog and allows you to click on one of the 256 different progeCAD drawing colors.
Once you have clicked on the color of interest, the Materials Properties window will appear. When you are finished assigning materials to the various colors you can click the Done button to return to the drawing.
In addition to the normal OK, Cancel, and Help buttons, a Clear Assignment button is provided at the bottom of the dialog box. This button will clear the material assignment for the selected entities, layer, or color. This is useful for example if you have assigned a material to a particular entity, but then wish to have the entity drawn using the material selected for the layer. In this case you can select the entity, then issue the materials command to open the Material Assignment dialog and then click on the Clear Assignment button. The material selection will then be removed from that entity and the next time it is rendered it will use the material selection for the layer.
Pattern | Description |
---|---|
Use Entity Color | This selection is similar to the solid color option, but uses the color assigned to the drawing entity. This allows you to assign the same surface finish to several different entities or to a layer, but allow them to have different surface colors. |
Image | This pattern allows you to select an image file that will be used to color the drawing entities surface. |
Gradient | A linear gradient fill. The color map defines the way the color changes along the gradient direction. |
Grit | This pattern is a solid colors whose intensity varies in a psuedo-random manner to simulated a gritty appearance. |
Marble | A pattern simulating the color variations and striations appearing in marble. |
Wood | This pattern simulates the concentric growth rings seen in wood. |
Checker | A planar checkerboard type pattern. |
Solid Checker | A solid checkerboard type pattern. Not only do the colors alternate in one plane but also in the direction normal to the plane. |
Agate | A pattern simulating the color variations of agate. |
Bozo | The bozo pattern is commonly used to simulate the apperance of clouds. |
Granite | A pattern simulating the color variations of granite. |
Onion | A pattern simulating the concentric spherical layers of an onion. |
Tile | A regular geometric pattern simulating tiles or bricks in a "stacked bond" configuration. The tile color and morter/grout color is controlled by the colormap as well as the thickness of the morter/grout line. The size of the tiles or bricks is controlled by the scale parameters. |
Brick | A regular geometric pattern simulating tiles or bricks in a "running bond" configuration. The tile color and morter/grout color is controlled by the colormap as well as the thickness of the morter/grout line. The size of the tiles or bricks is controlled by the scale parameters. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to for the agate pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Turbulence | Turbulence controls the magnitude of the random variations in the pattern. Zero turbulence would result in a regular geometric pattern. Larger values result in increasing amounts of pseudorandom variation. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to for the bozo pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Turbulence | Turbulence controls the magnitude of the random variations in the pattern. Zero turbulence would result in a regular geometric pattern. Larger values result in increasing amounts of pseudorandom variation. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale values determines the size of the bricks in each direction. The first value determines the width of the bricks (where width represents the length of the long side of a typical brick). The second value determines the height (top to bottom) of the brick and the third value determines the depth (front to back). |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern blocks in each direction. |
Pattern Colors | The two pattern color buttons are used to specify the two alternating colors of the checker pattern. Clicking on either of the two buttons will activate a color chooser window that will allow you to choose the colors of interest. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Image Filename | The image file parameter determines the name of the file used. Note that the file name is stored with the drawing. The image itself is not stored in the drawing. Consequently, if the image file location is moved, renamed, or deleted, the image will not be found during rendering and the surface will be colored black. Note that if you put only the filename and not the full path here, then you can move the drawing file and image file together to different locations without breaking the association. |
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the placement of the image during rendering. |
Scale | The scale vector determines how the width and height of the image is scaled. The first number controls the image width, and the second controls its height. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the gradient sweep. This point will be the midpoint of the sweep and will have a value of 0.5. |
Scale | The scale value determines the distance over which the gradient sweep takes place. This value represents the total distance from one extreme to the other along the direction vector specified by U Axis. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. If the checkbox labeled Auto to the right of the number entry blanks is checked, then the center vector will be automatically calculated as the centroid of each entity or block to which this pattern is applied. Since in the automatic mode the center vector is recalculated for each entity or block, there will be a discontinuity in the pattern between different entities or blocks that share the same pattern. You can avoid this discontinuity by manually setting the center vector to a common value for all of the entities or blocks that share the pattern. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to for the granite pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to for the marble pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Turbulence | Turbulence controls the magnitude of the random variations in the pattern. Zero turbulence would result in a regular geometric pattern. Larger values result in increasing amounts of pseudorandom variation. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to for the onion pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale values determines the size of the pattern blocks in each direction. |
Pattern Colors | The two pattern color buttons are used to specify the two alternating colors of the checker pattern. Clicking on either of the two buttons will activate a color chooser window that will allow you to choose the colors of interest. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale values determines the size of the tile blocks in each direction. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Center | The center vector includes three numbers (x, y, and z coordinates) that determine the center of the pattern. Changing this vector will offset the pattern in the direction specified. |
Scale | The scale value determines the size of the pattern in each of the three axis directions. Larger scale values will increase the overall size of pattern. |
Noise Octaves | The noise model used to perturb the wood grain pattern superimposes mulitple layers or octaves of pseudo-random variations. Each layer has a higher frequency and a lower magnitude. The superposition or fractal approach results in very complex and natural-looking patterns. The Noise Octaves parameters controls how many different layers or octaves of random variations are used in the noise computation. |
Fractal Dimension | The fractal dimension controls the magnitude of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 0.5 would result in each octave being one half the magnitude of the previous octave. |
Lacunarity | The lacunarity controls the relative size of successive octaves of noise. For example, a value of 2.0 would result in each octave have approximate twice the frequency of variation as the previous octave. |
Turbulence | Turbulence controls the magnitude of the random variations in the pattern. Zero turbulence would result in a regular geometric pattern. Larger values result in increasing amounts of pseudorandom variation. |
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Metallic Finish | This controls whether the surface is assumed to be metallic or not. When this is checked, light bouncing off of the surface takes on some of the color of the surface. For non-metallic surfaces, light bouncing off of the surface remains the same color as the light source. |
Ambient Light | Ambient light is used to model the small scale diffuse reflections that tend to fill in shadows and dark areas in real life scenes. Raytracing algorithms trace the major light reflections and shadows, but in a real-life scene there are many small scale reflections and refractions that cannot be modeled effectively with raytracing. For example, with raytracing areas that are in shadows tend to be very dark if not entirely black. In real life, shadows tend to be filled in by small scale or diffuse reflections off of other objects. Ambient light is a way to approximately model this effect. If the ambient light value is above 0 the surface will appear even if it is not lit by a light in the scene. Ambient light is equally distributed over the surface regardless of the angle of view. |
Diffuse Light | Diffuse light models the way light reflects off of a rough surface. When light shines off of a rough surface it is reflected in every direction by the surface. In contrast, a very smooth surface such as a mirror reflects the light primarily one direction (i.e. the specular direction). The intensity of diffuse lighting depends on the angle that the light hits the surface and not the angle that the viewer observes the surface. |
Specular Reflection | The specular reflection value controls the way other objects reflect off of the surface. If this value is greater than 0 then when a ray hits this surface, a reflection ray will be generated and traced. Consequently, the image of other surfaces will be reflected on this surface. |
Light Reflection | This parameter controls how light reflects off of the surface in specular highlights. Smooth surfaces reflect most of their light in the specular direction (imagine a ball bouncing off of a flat surface). In contrast, rougher surfaces will scatter the light in a diffuse reflection The light reflection parameter controls the magnitude of this specular highlight that occurs. |
Light Reflection Size | The light reflection size parameter controls the size of the specular highlight that appears on an object. A value of one will produce a very diffuse reflection similar to the affect produced by the diffuse light parameter. Higher values of this parameter will produce smaller/tighter highlights on the surface. |
Transparency | Transparency controls the way light filters through the surface. If this parameter is greater than 0 then some portion of what lies behind the object will show through it. If this parameter is 1, then the object is totally transparent and will not be visible at all. |