Navisworks Materials

[r.sd]

Is there a way I can import Civil 3D Materials into Navisworks?

I have a corridor surface that has it's rendering material as "Sitework.Paving & Surfacing.Aphalt.1" can I bring that straight into Navisworks?

[john.lipp]

Hi r.sd,

By default Navisworks should have “Load Material Definitions” enabled in the options editor.

Please try the following:

1. Open Navisworks

2. Click the application button > Options or hit F12 on the keyboard to open the options editor

3. Expand File Readers > DWG/DXF

4. Ensure you have “Load Material Definitions” marked.

From the help topics, “Select this check box to extract material definitions from DWG files. When this check box is clear, the file reader ignores material definitions.”

When you load your DWG file in Navisworks, you should see materials listed in the palette of Presenter > Materials that correspond to the materials that were attached in Civil.

To use the image files from the materials from Civil, you may have to specify the paths to those materials in the “Material Search Paths” box in the options editor under File Readers > DWG/DXF.  From the help topics, “Autodesk Navisworks automatically searches the default Autodesk material paths. Use this box to specify additional paths to texture files used in Autodesk Architectural Desktop materials. Separate the paths with semi-columns.”

For Civil 3D 2011 64-bit, the material image files are located in the following folders:

 - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials2011\assetlibrary_base.fbm\1\Mats

 - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials2011\assetlibrary_base.fbm\2\Mats

I tested opening the “Corridor-5C.dwg” sample file from the Civil 3D 2011 tutorials.  After installing the Civil 3D 2011 64-bit object enabler, and adding the two paths to the material search paths box, the materials were brought through into Navisworks presenter when I loaded the model.

Please let me know if this allows you to bring in your materials.

Best regards,

John Lipp

Product Support Specialist

Autodesk Product Support