2013 materials refresh styles, will not pull in updates

[Mark_Wigan]

in versions of inventor prior to 2013 we were able to quickly and easily refresh a part styles, and thereby obtain the master information for materials, colours and any other style.

i find that now, with the new system of managing materials and appearances that if i need to update a part to reflect the material assests that reside in my materials and appearance library that i have to:

1. open the part, then set the part material to a material other than that i wish to update, then

2. delete the local/ document asset of the material i wish to update, then,

3.  assign the material from my material library to the part (to get the library asstes to come through to the part).

i hope i am wrong... it seems rediculous that we have to delete local materials or colours prior to obtaining an updated material or appearance to get the new data into the part.

(the refresh styles command actually appears to be calling in the updates however the updates seem to treat the document assets as the most important. even when managing materials and appearances, the local/document asset seems to take priority over any library asset. again this is different to pre 2013, and is frustratingly slow to work around. all that used to happen in 2012 and prior is we would get a warning that the local style would be overwritten with updated style data = very quick and easy)

has anyone found the same?

[blair]

Materials / Appearances:

1.) Materials will have a stock finish/appearance, but primarily deal with the physical properties, Mass and physical attributes used for FEA and will not change the finish of a IPT that has an "Appearance"  override (manually changed from the stock Material.

2.) Appearances are just that, (think of them as paint). They will not affect the Mass or other physical properties. They will always override any appearances of Materials. Once you have made an Appearance change, the change will stay regardless on the Material change until the Appearance change has been cleared (color wheel with "X" in lower corner).

All Materials have a default Appearance and will change automatically if there is not an Appearance overide.

If you are migrating from 2012 to 2013, one of the first things is to migrate your Styles

[blair]

The documentation on this has been rather weak, you need to migrate your Styles before you migrate your data, (IPT, IAM).

[Mark_Wigan]

thanks blair.

i have done all the migration and yes the documentation is poor. i have a good materials library now and also a good appearance library now after a few frustrating hours of going through these new systems.

actually i am not concerned about local overrides as i think you meant to explain. let me try to clarify what i meant...

in inventor when you assign a material to a part, the material is cached into the part along with the assets it requires. this has always been the case. with this in mind, if the styles library (pre 2013) or materials library (2013) gets some edit say from a cad administrator to better define any of the materials, then that master information is available to all users who are pointing to the master data.

the difference between pre 2013 and now is that now, for the user to successfully obtain updates to files from this master data (materials or appearance libraries) he must first carry out the steps i referred to. So, if this is what we must now do then this to me is a step backwards. Prior to 2013 a user could choose to "update" the styles and simply say "yes" when prompted about his local styles being overwritten.

the way things seem to work now is not really a sensible workflow as far as i can determine. the reason for my post was that i was wondering if this is really the case for everyone, why this has not been brought to the attention of the developers?

it worked very well before. as i said it has always been a manual update using "refresh" or "update styles" but now we are no longer able to overide the document cached information successfully.

[streharg]

New material library system in 2013 is quite good, but it still needs more tweaking and optimization.

If i want to update some material or appearance in part, i just go through purge/update several times, and usually it works.

Or just update, then rebuild or save. And part material and appearance is usually up to date.

But i agree, autodesk has to fix this, so it won't be so sensible to workflow.

[blair]

Create a simple part: with a assigned material such as mild steel. Check the mass of the product in iPproperties. Change the appearance from default to Pink. The mass is still the same. Change the Material from steel to rubber, the mass will now be the mass of Rubber, but it will still be Pink. Now eliminate the color override of Pink and the item will now change to the default appearance of Rubber.

The change is the Materials/Styles was to move the items from being document cached (in the part template) to the Styles Library. Probably trying to make a "lighter" IPT file and now keep all the Styles and Materials in a central location.

[Mark_Wigan]

thanks blair,

i understand these things & that sounds like the usual behaviour of local overrides. but the issue is different to a simple override.

yes the styles lib or materials lib is a sensible approach to lighten the file & we like many have been doing this. it works well.

as i said the apparent oversight between then and now is that the update from master data cannot be easily pulled through to the existing part if the master data changes & user wishes to obtain the update. he needs to first carry out the process of changing the current material to something other than that which he desires, then delete the material he had active and wishes to update from master data. then add the material to the document or assign it from the material ibrary to the part.

thanks streharg i will try doing the purge refresh multiple times as mentioned & see if we can get this sorted.

autodesk should be able to fix this quite easily if they are aware of it.

[streharg]

With purge/update method i'm able to update all changes in material ibrary in party/assys, so i hope it will work for you also! I'm already thinking to write some ilogic code for updating parts, but it's out of my reach for now.

In general, 2 rounds of purge/update works for me, and other 20 coworkers.

Greg

[SBix26]

Mark, I have, on occasion, seen the behavior you're describing (Materials/Appearances won't update from library).  But mostly it behaves as in the past and as you and I expect it to.  I have not yet deduced any cause for the aberrant behavior, though.  

So, I'm both validating your observation and contradicting it, I guess.  Inventor 2013, in this regard, works as it should-- mostly.  It is certainly not reasonable to have to go through the change/purge/change nonsense every time you want to modify a material/appearance in the library!

Sam B
Inventor 2012 Certified Professional

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