Hello fellow SolidWorks users,
I've maid a company material database by copying the SolidWorksmaterial database and editing it in a text editor. For somematerials I've copied the textures of from the SolidWorksdatabase. The result is very good but has some disadvantages.
Using textures in larges assemblies is confusing and doesn't worknice. If you want to change this you have to delete all texture andchange the color for each part individual.
Is there a way to give a material two color properties.
1. Use textures and color added to the material it self
2. Use only color that the user can insert himself
All solutions or ideas are Welcome,
Stefan Hovens
I've maid a company material database by copying the SolidWorksmaterial database and editing it in a text editor. For somematerials I've copied the textures of from the SolidWorksdatabase. The result is very good but has some disadvantages.
Using textures in larges assemblies is confusing and doesn't worknice. If you want to change this you have to delete all texture andchange the color for each part individual.
Is there a way to give a material two color properties.
1. Use textures and color added to the material it self
2. Use only color that the user can insert himself
All solutions or ideas are Welcome,
Stefan Hovens
But, I do have an idea:
I'll forwarn you, it's got some drawbacks, and I'll talk about those in a second.
Why don't you make two materials databases: one with textures and one sans-textures. Give them the same names and store them in different folders. Add both folders to the materials search path. Once you've done that it's a pretty straight-forward matter to record a macro that switches the order in which the paths are searched (via the move-up button in File Locations of System Options)
you can then tie that macro to a button and bingo: assembly too big, switch to the low-detail database.
OK, now for the obvious drawbacks:
1) You have to maintain two databases (or write a program to synch them)
2) This probably won't be of any benefit for a model that's already loaded
3) you're performance may not be affected that much by the textures unless you're using high resolution maps. Most of Solidworks' textures are fairly simple and are handled by your graphics card.
Good luck.
John