whats the difference between creating a decal, and creating a texture that contains a bitmap?
I know that decals are only available in photoworks and dont show up in realview, whereas a texture will.
Any other significant differences?
any reasons for using one over the other?
Thanks
Perry
Hi Perry,
First off, Textures are a thing of the past and have been removed starting with 2009. You can still use textures in the form of bitmaps but you use them within an appearance.
The main difference, as I see it, is that decals are purposed for when you want to lay artwork down on a model face - like a logo or nomenclature on a product design and you size a single piece of artwork accordingly. Textures, unlike decals, are a single piece of bitmap that is "Tiled" (square artwork that is purposely composed so the left to right and top to bottom match at the boudaries) so that it can cover a potentially infinite area.
Regards
Mark
First, I guess I am mistaken in my original post (or I am recollection something from an earlier version of SW). We are using SW2010, both decals AND textures are visible without photoworks running, you just cant create either one. This seems kinda lame, if you can use these things without PW, you should be able to create them as well, but I digress. I was sure that in SW2008 I was able to create textures without PW and so I was using them like decals. I know that a true decal is certainly better suited for that purpose and since I have to load PW to create either one I might as well use the correct one.
As far as textures being a thing of the past, yes I have heard that from a few sources. However it does not seem to be completely removed from SW2010 yet. For example when I open up my appearances task pane and select the top most item, labeled "appearances(color)" then down in the bottom half of the pane appears to items; a graphic labeled "color" and one labeled "texture". I can drag the texture over to my part and apply it, even change the path to the bitmaps which then changes the "texture" of my part, just cant save the new "texture" (kinda lame).
Guess I'll just have to make up all the decals or "textures" I forsee needing while PhotoWorks is available...
Thanks for the info
Perry
Hi Perry,
Yes, like everything we do with SW, we must be sensitive to legacy and that is why, with no appearance subfolders selected, you have these two choices, but as you've noted, when you edit that "texture" (or color for that matter) you get no mention of it in the Appearance Property Pane although you can still scale the mapping (like <2009.)
One argument for using decals over textures is that decals support an alpha channel and textures did not/do not. Many SW users simply could not do a decal without alpha support. Secondly, w/o PW, you can not accurately scale them but you get a simplier, abet, one size fits all scalling tool.
If you want to talk about how hard it is to "burn the bridge" to textures, check out C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\data\Images (where ALL of our appearance data is stored)
Regards
Mark
I am trying to create a custom text decal, and I do not see any step by step instructions in any of the help files. Does anyone know where I can find this information.
Thanks
I'm having a similar problem. I need to apply a silkscreen to a PCB model in SW. I can get the silkscreen layer out of my PCB software as a PDF and from there I can save it to a JPEG file. I have had success in applying the JPEG to the surface of the PCB model in SW, but can only see it when rendered. I tested a SW supplied decal (the UL logo) and it is visible all the time (not just during rendering). I wonder if anyone knows what I am doing wrong? I suspect that I need to do something to the JPEG in order to get it to work as the supplied decals work.