Moving Appearance & Materials libraries to a network location?

[gerhick]

Hi all,

I'm trying to move our Appearance & Materials libraries to a network location. But I'm not quite sure which files need to be moved. I copied all the files in the folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials, but when I change my project settings to reflect this location they're not available in the Appearance & Materials library managers.

Any suggestions?

[NicolasXu]

Hi Gerrard,

The material libraries under "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials" are Read-Only and shared by multiple products, which are installed with multiple products and suites. Given they are read-only and existed on each PC with Inventor installed, I think it's not recommended to move them to network location.

As to the purpose of using shared Appearance & Materials libraries, I'd suggest only moving those custom libraries, i.e. the Inventor Material Library with custom materials/Appearance, or a separate library with company standard materials/Appearance. You can find the file location via tooltip either in Projects dialog or Material/Appearance browser.

Thanks,

Nicolas

[xingyuan]

Hi gerhick,

For customized Appearance & Material library what you need just copy .adsklib file to the network location. For default library(Autodesk Appearance library, Autodesk Material Library and Inventor Material Library) there some limitation and can't be moved. One workaround is copy all content you needed to a customized library and moving them to a network llocation just same with Nicolas

There is tooltip show the .adsklib file location of default libraries in project edit but it doesn't work if you move them. Only method come back is restore system default by context menu.

[brandof]

I'm also trying to move a library to a network. We have the Woodworking for Inventor add on and have a separate library for the program. What we would like to do is set up the folder onto a shared network that everyone can connect too and share materials. When I try to copy the library and all the textures to the desired folder on the network and try routing the path for the library, I get an error messaging stating "Failed to open material library". What am I doing wrong and how can I accomplish this?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! If you are on Inventor 2013 or later, for better performance, I would suggest you keep Appearance and Material Library local but lock it up. Only users with Admin right can change it. If you move these libraries to network, you may encounter poor performance particularly when designing large assembly (>10K components).

Many thanks!

[brandof]

Is there anyway to make it so we share the same library? Otherwise when we get a new material we would have to all add it to our individual computers and that would just be annoying after a while. 

[Mark.Lancaster]

@brandof

You can share that information out on your network like you asked.  However as @johnsonshiue pointed out it can impact your Inventor performance and that's why they recommend to not share it out on the network.