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Knurled Appearance doesn't show in 2013 Pro

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Message 1 of 41
trumpy81
8037 Views, 40 Replies

Knurled Appearance doesn't show in 2013 Pro

GDay All,

 

I have been playing with appearances and no matter what I do I cannot get any knurled pattern to appear on my parts.

 

The knurl pattern and settings appear perfectly fine in the appearance editor but when I apply it to a part all I see is a chrome effect, no pattern.

 

I have tried using many differnet .bmp's, templates, importing from 2012 pro etc... all with the same results.

 

Anyone know why I am not seeing the knurl?

 

I am running Inventor 2013 Pro on

Win 7 64bit

Intel i7 960

Asus Sabertooth x58

Asus ATI HD 6970 graphics card

1x Patriot Pyro 120g SSD

6x Hard drives - 8.5 TB total

Corsair CMP12GX3M3A1600C9 - 12 gig Ram.

 

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
40 REPLIES 40
Message 2 of 41
karthur1
in reply to: trumpy81

Go to the View tab.  On the appearance panel>Visual Style, select the drop-down and change this to "Realistic".  If its still not there, look on the right side of the appearance panel and change the textures to "ON".

 

Kirk

 

2012-04-09_2130.png

Message 3 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: karthur1

I tried as you suggested, turning on realistic and frankly, that didn't really work for me. It certainly would not be of any use in day to day usage either. Ray tracing takes an inordinate amount of time when set to best.

 

With ray tracing set to interactive the results are marginal. I can kind of see a pattern but it's anything but impressive.

When set to good the result is not much better and when set to best there is no sign of the knurl?

 

The project I tried has 14 parts, 3 of which have knurled details. It took 42 sec to render the ray tracing and any zooming or rotating causes the ray tracing to repeat.

 

I zoomed in to get a better look at the knurl details, it took considerably longer to render and still no knurl detail.

 

See the attached pic.

 

Pic 1. The chrome knob in the center of the pic, the small knob above and to the right and the knob to the right of that are supposed to be knurled. This image was captured after ray tracing using the best option. Realistic was selected in the view panel. I was using knurled 45 (the default knurl setting in 2013 in these pics)

 

Pic 2. The same shot taken with 'Shaded with edges' selected in the view panel. No knurling.

 

Also, you can't open parts correctly with realistic turned on, it just doesn't work.

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 4 of 41
karthur1
in reply to: trumpy81

Tools > Application Options, Hardare Tab.  Click the Diagnostics button and paste the screen shot here. Not familiar with your graphics card. That may be the issue.

Message 5 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: karthur1

As requested, here are the details, see the pic also;

 

This Direct3D graphics driver is Microsoft WHQL certified
Graphics Hardware Description:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ATI display adapter (0x6718)

AIRViz Device Manager \ VirtualDeviceDx11
Feature Level 5_0
Quality Mode
Hardware Renderer

Graphics driver file aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll is version 8.950.0.0
Current optimization settings are not known
The display is using 32-bit color


Inventor Version:

Build: 138, Release: 2013 RTM - Date: Thu 03/01/2012       
64-Bit Edition - 8192.00 GB


System Information:

Operating System:         64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Professional  (Build 7601) Service Pack 1
Language:             English
System Manufacturer:         System manufacturer
System Model:             System Product Name
BIOS:                 BIOS Date: 08/02/11 14:36:59 Ver: 08.00.15
Processor:             Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         960  @ 3.20GHz (1 processor, 4 cores, Hyperthreading enabled)
System Memory:             11.991 GB RAM


Graphics Device Information:

Renderer:             HAL
Manufacturer:             Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip Type:             ATI display adapter (0x6718)
DAC Type:             Internal DAC(400MHz)
Graphics HW Memory:         1.979 GB
Display Mode:             1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60 Hz)

Graphics driver file:         aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver file version:         8.950.0.0
Driver Date:             14 February 2012 0:00:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)


Direct3D Graphics Device Information:

Adapter Description:         AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
Vendor ID string:         0x00001002
Device ID string:         0x00006718
VendorID:             1002
DeviceID:             6718
SubSystemID:             3b81043
Revision:             0


Direct3D 10 / DXGI System Information:

Dedicated Video Memory:     1.979 GB
Dedicated System Memory:     0 MB
Shared System Memory:         5.746 GB


DxDiag System Information:

Operating System:         Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.111118-2330)
Language:             English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer:         System manufacturer
System Model:             System Product Name
BIOS:                 BIOS Date: 08/02/11 14:36:59 Ver: 08.00.15
Processor:             Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         960  @ 3.20GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
System Memory:             12288MB RAM
Page File:             5549MB used, 19006MB available
DirectX Version:         DirectX 11
DxDiag Version:         6.01.7601.17514


DxDiag Graphics Device Information:

DirectX Version:         10.0
DDI Version:             11
DDI Version Number:         b
DxDiag WHQL Level:         0
Driver Signed Valid:         True
Driver Signed:             True
Manufacturer:             Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip Type:             ATI display adapter (0x6718)
DAC Type:             Internal DAC(400MHz)
Revision:             
Graphics HW Memory:         3814 MB
Display Mode:             1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Graphics driver file:         aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver file version:         8.17.0010.1119
Driver Date:             2/15/2012 13:17:04
WHQL Level:             1


Inventor Options Information:

Options = 0x00000000
Warning Options = 0x00000000


Graphics driver log information:

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 6 of 41
ChrisMitchell01
in reply to: trumpy81

Andy,

 

There's some updated info in the wiki help relating to migration of materials - perhaps that will cover your issues with knurl not appearing:

 

http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0000-Installa0/0192-Data_Mig192/0193-Data_Mig193...

 

If you need to use the Realistic view mode but don't want the performance hit from  Ray Tracing then the best solution is to switch it off:

 

Tools, App Options, Display, Settings - Uncheck "Use Ray Tracing for Realistic Style"

 

Hope this helps,

 

Thanks,
Chris



Chris Mitchell
PDMS Customer Engagment Team
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 7 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: ChrisMitchell01

Thanks Chris, I tried that and it helped, but I found that the knurl issue is what I believe to be a scaling error in Inventor 2013.

 

I drew an extruded cylinder 200mm (8 in) diameter and applied the knurl to one face. It rendered the knurl quite large on that part. If you think about what a knurl would look like on an 8 inch cylinder, it would appear quite small, not so in Inventor 2013. See pic Large Part.

 

The same knurl appearance was applied to a 10mm (3/8 in) part and the knurl on that part should look fairly large but we don't see any knurl at all. See pic Small Part.

 

So there is obviously an error in there somewhere.

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 8 of 41
ChrisMitchell01
in reply to: trumpy81

Andy,

 

On the new Appearance Editor, (bottom left), there is a setting for Display Units (see attached image). What do you have that set to ? Does it correspond to the units of the knurled parts ?

 

Feel free to post your ipt file & we'll take a look.

 

Thanks,
Chris

 

 



Chris Mitchell
PDMS Customer Engagment Team
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 9 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: ChrisMitchell01

Chris, it was set to English (in, lbmass, psi) so I went ahead and changed it to Metric mmNs (mm, N, MPa) but it made no difference.

 

I added the thumbscrew (the small part) to this post. This is not the only part I have seen this on though.

 

Thanks BTW, I appreciate any help and advise I can get 🙂

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 10 of 41
ChrisMitchell01
in reply to: trumpy81

Hi Andy,


The issue is that for your knurled appearance the scale of the bitmap file being used is many times larger than you need it. See "Knurl Appearance Scaling.png" & attached ipt file.

 

I changed the Knurl "Relief Pattern" to be "Custom - Image" & then changed the Scale to be 2.54mm (from 304.8mm), then saved the Appearance. I'm sure you can work out how I got from 304.8 to 2.54.....

 

After you've done this you can use the Appearance Adjust command from the Quick Access Toolbar, to dynamically change the scaling by dragging the glyphs after you've selected the surface. See "Knurl Appearance Adjust.png".


This issue is logged in our issue database.

 

Thanks,
Chris



Chris Mitchell
PDMS Customer Engagment Team
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 11 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: ChrisMitchell01

Thanks Chris!! I don't know how I missed scaling in the image edit dialog but obviously I did. Perhaps I messed with it but also had some other setting set incorrectly and then dismissed it as a possible solution.

 

So now at least I have success with a custom appearance, but how about the native Knurled 45 appearance?

 

It's not working for me either which is what led to making the custom appearance to begin with. I guess I was frustrated at that point so i started looking for answers in the wrong place.

 

I really need to tape a mirror to the screen, so I can see the problem more clearly ... lol

 

Thanks again.

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 12 of 41
ChrisMitchell01
in reply to: trumpy81

Hi Andy,

 

Yes, during the migration of your appearances, Metas-Steel (Knurled) is migrated to Knurled 45. For a part of this size the same scaling issue exists as I previously mentioned, which is why it wasn't showing up properly. If you do a similar scaling change for a custom image for Knurled 45 you will be able to get the appearance you're looking for.


The issue with Knurled 45 is also logged.

 

Back to the issue with Ray Tracing performance, you can either switch it off for Realistic mode for the whole application, or you can continue to work with the default of honouring Document Settings & edit your default template so so that Ray Tracing is disabled there.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience,

Chris



Chris Mitchell
PDMS Customer Engagment Team
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 13 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: ChrisMitchell01

Chris, Knurled 45 is not migrated, it was installed when 2013 Pro was installed. I have 2013 installed in a VM where it could not have imported anything.

Anyhow the settings for Knurled 45 are:

Metal
Type - Stainless Steel
Finish - Polished

Relief Pattern
Type - Knurl
Amount - 0.80
Scale - 1.40

These are the default settings, nothing has been touched by me only the basic options have been selected in 'Options'. Set display units are English (in, lbmass, psi) and native units in this installation are imperial.

When it is applied to a part, using the 'Adjust' mini-toolbar there is no option for scaling as there is for my custom knurl appearance.

Just thought you should know.

BTW, my custom knurls are looking fantastic ... I'm a very happy chappy right now 🙂

Thanks for the help getting it sorted, I really do appreciate that.

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 14 of 41
JBerns
in reply to: ChrisMitchell01

Chris,

 

Why does a thread feature appear correctly without requiring Ray Tracing, yet a knurl texture requires Ray Tracing? Aren't they both just bitmaps?

 

Regards,

 

Jerry Berns

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAD Administrator
Using Inventor 2022
Autodesk Certified Instructor
Autodesk Inventor 2020 Certified Professional
Autodesk AutoCAD 2017 Certified Professional
Message 15 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: JBerns

Jerry, I'm not Chris, But I'll try to answer your question. Chris can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

You are correct to assume that they are both bitmaps, but the knurl should also use a bump map to give the impression of the raised pattern. If you look at any thread in Inventor it appears flat, because it actually is, there is no bump map associated with it.

 

You can display a knurl in 2013 without ray tracing but first you have to create one from scratch in the appearance editor using a bitmap as a pattern relief.

 

I have created my own brass colored knurl and it displays correctly for me at least but the standard Knurled 45 does not.

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 16 of 41
JBerns
in reply to: trumpy81

Andy, I had selected the Reply button on Chris' post, but I guess the system instead replied to the last post. Sorry about that. Thanks for the explanation. I have demonstrated the knurl texture for several years. Yesterday when I tried to show the texture in an Inventor 2013 class I was surprised to find it not working. It would seem the simple process of displaying a knurled face has become more difficult in Inventor 2013. Best regards, Jerry Berns
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAD Administrator
Using Inventor 2022
Autodesk Certified Instructor
Autodesk Inventor 2020 Certified Professional
Autodesk AutoCAD 2017 Certified Professional
Message 17 of 41
trumpy81
in reply to: JBerns

Jerry, I have found the problem with the Knurled 45 appearance.

 

When it is first installed the appearance will have the parameters that I typed in my reply, the one directly above your question.

 

You will notice that there is no image mentioned because, as installed, the Knurled 45 appearance doesn't use one and that's the problem.

 

Relief Pattern
Type - Knurl      <---- Change the type to Custom Image
Amount - 0.80
Scale - 1.40

 

After changing to custom image, select C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Textures\surfaces\knurl_3.bmp then click the triangle to the right of the image to edit the bitmap settings.

 

In the scale panel, set the 'sample size' to be 0.20 in (you can't use any other units here except inches.)

 

Close the image editor and click on the apply button.

 

If the knurl appears too big or too small, go back and edit the sample size again. 0.20 should be ok for parts 1" or less in size.

 

Don't forget to add the appearance back to the library, otherwise it will only exist in the document you edited it in.

 

HTH

Regards
Andy M
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk Inventor 2013 Pro SP1.1, Win7 Pro - 64Bit - SP1, Intel i7 960 @ 3.333 GHz
Asus X58 Sabertooth, Corsair 12Gig DDR3, AMD Radeon HD6970, Samsung 830 Series 256G SSD, 2x 3TB Seagate, 2x 2TB Hitachi,
1x 1TB Samsung, 4 x 2TB Seagate in Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, Dual Asus VE278Q Monitors
Message 18 of 41
ChrisVandeVoorde
in reply to: trumpy81

Will this be solved in the SP1 fix?

 

I have this problem since we work with SP1 (2013 & the beta were ok).

I don't want to change anything. we have ton's of parts in Inventor with knurled surfaces, if I open and old file (IV 2011 it turns out to be yellow) if i then press update styles everything used to become ok (using 2013 without SP1). Now the knurled is totaly messed up.

 

I'm pissed because we need to manualy update the styles of all our parts, now we would need to do even more work? Not good ....

 

please solve this in the better SP1!

 

for now I believe the best thing to do for me is to remove SP1 😞 (even if it fixes a few crashes)

 

 

Message 19 of 41

Chris,

 

Do you have any extra info about this ? Did you remove the SP1 version ? Did that fix the problem ?

 

Are you able to share one of these problem parts & also your material/appearance library that contains the knurl definition ?

 

Thanks,

Chris



Chris Mitchell
PDMS Customer Engagment Team
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 20 of 41

Hi Chris (btw cool name :-))

 

I have removed SP1 and now the problem is over. The problem only arrived once I went to SP1 (I also worked for a month with SP1 beta but no problem there). Now I work without a SP.

 

 

Since 2013 I have problems opening a old part that is saved in 2011 format. Once I open a part it asks me to transform it to the appearances library, I say yes and then it converts my custom colours to a yellow welded like thing:

wrong textures.JPG

 

To fix this in IV2013 & IV 2013BetaSP1  I just need to update my styles & purge the once thate aren't used and then my part is all fine. When I did the same in IV2013SP1 it was also okay. Only with parts that had a knurled surface the knurled would show up incorrectly.

 

I have attached 2 parts, one without a knurled surface and the other with it (still saved as an IV2011 file)

 

What actually would help me the most is that I just don't need to press update & purge. It just need to be include in the command of converting things to the appearances. In addition to that the knurled error (mm>inch) should be solved.

 

Hope this helps

 

 

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