How to create new material in 2013?

[Dan_Margulius]

Hello,

Maybe it is a dum question. How can I create a new material in Inv2013.

I got lost with all the new menus in there. Maybe there is a tutorial or video with this issue explained

Thanks,

Dan

[MariaManuela · Accepted solution]

Hi.

Here.

[jwood14]

But how do you save the new style because when you make it it is only saved for that session

[spence.greene]

Yeah, how? Anybody??

[streharg]

Materials are no longer under styles, they're in material library under design data.

My workflow:

I have one .ipt part in design data next to material library just for materials, so i have also every single material in my working ipt file.

Next, you have to clear out read only option in windows for your custom material library.

Then open ipt part.

Create new material, and add it to your library.

Close everything, check your library as read only in windows.

For more info, please use google or this forum, there's tons of posts about that.

e.g.
http://www.trainingtutorial.com/TAT38_Custom_Autodesk_Inventor_2013_Material_Library.htm

Greg

[spence.greene]

Thanks Greg,

I fully understand materials and appearance libraries have changed in 2013. I have successfully migrated my .xml file to a user specific .adsklib file. My company has 4 stand alone Product Design Suite Ultimate and 12 Network Product Design Suite Premium Licenses with about 18 users that share those. Each user has an .ipj project file local to their desktop computer so that the workspace can point to a local folder, from which we interface our PDM/PLM. Everybody's .ipj is configured to point to the network location where our library is located for both appearances and materials. All has been working fine. What I want to do is simply add another material to our custom library. I have read the document: autodesk-inventor-2013-materials-and-appearances-c.pdf and attempted to generate a new material from an existing one by adding it to the document materials, copy & rename, edit to my liking (used the same appearance and changed the physical properties,) then RMB and add to the custom library. The "Release Library" becomes available when I RMB on my custom library in the Material Browser so I click on that making the assumption that this is akin to "update style library." This works while I am in session, but the adsklib does not change based on the file's last modified date. I am pretty sure that because other users are pointing to the adsklib with their respective .ipj files that it won't update, unless everyone has closed Inventor. ***NEWSFLASH*** As I am composing this e-mail, one new material has become available in the library for another user. My Material browser, however has an error on my library in the browser. I right click on the library with the error, locate the new version (copy of adsklib with a version name) and the error is gone, a new material has been added, yet the .ipj points to the original .adsklib and the material browser still indicates the original .adsklib. Now I just baffled, did the new version file just copy its data to the old version file? Anyway, this is all very bug-y and might be better understood if an error dialog box appeared when I click the "Release Library" and it can't write to the file.

J. Spencer Greene
Manufacturing Engineer
[cid:image003.jpg@01CE77C5.174AE510]
OOC - Ogden Operations Center
300 West 12th Street
Ogden, UT 84404
Desk Phone: 801-528-6793
Mobile Phone: 435-720-7689
sgreene@infinacorp.com

[streharg]

Have to say you have quite complicated arrangement with all that project files on local sites, but looks like it's the only way for local workspaces.

Anyway, can't argue about bugs and poorly written code in new materials & stuff.

Is there a lock next to your custom library name maybe? And if someone is using the library, you cant' edit it. But you can unlock it (in windows - read only off), then quickly open it and it will get "locked" just for you for editing.

And always, when you're done, lock the adsklib file back to read only, so no one can edit the library (will get lock next to the name, like inventor library).

More importantly, do you have sp1 & 2 installed? With sp1 (or it was sp1.1?), all the big bugs flew away ...

Oh, maybe you should try one more thing - i hope you migrated material library with sp1.1 installed, otherwise it could be corrupted. It happened to me.

At first it looked like a big mess to me, but now i wouldn't go back to old styles system. This one is simply better, and i hope autodesk will continue to work on it.
Well, hope you'll find some usefull information! But for time being, people can create new materials locally.

Greg

[spence.greene]

Greg,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Regarding the custom library, it is not locked when I attempt to make additions. I have been changing the Windows attribute to uncheck the read only box when I want to add the edited Document Material to the custom library. When the read only attribute is checked and the lock icon is by the library you can only add things to favorites. I do find it funny the concern about making sure it is read only so that no one can edit the library.... I would welcome someone's ability to edit the thing! Now the service pack level is intriguing because when I migrated the library, it was at the initial sp0. I will migrate the xml file again now that I'm on sp2, give it a different name than is currently in use and have all the users update their .ipj files to point to the new file.

J. Spencer Greene
Manufacturing Engineer
[cid:image002.jpg@01CE77DB.B8A223E0]
OOC - Ogden Operations Center
300 West 12th Street
Ogden, UT 84404
Desk Phone: 801-528-6793
Mobile Phone: 435-720-7689
sgreene@infinacorp.com

[streharg]

Hope that will fix your problem! It did work for me.

If not, i think there's some other options, but are hidden somewhere deep in this forum

Good luck!

Greg

[spence.greene]

Cheers! The problem seemed to be the (unbeknownst to me) corrupt custom .adsklib file that was migrated while at Inventor 2013 sp0. I reran the migration now that I'm updated to sp2, gave the resulting custom .adsklib a new name and changed my (and the other users' local .ipj files to point to the new library in our network location. The custom library can now be edited in place and the changes will be available to the other users after they close and restart Inventor. Another useful hint is to use the "Update" command in the Manage/Styles and Standards to push the Library changes that occur during migration to the template. GREAT ADVICE Streharg!

[streharg]

Just advice - you don't need to push materials to template file, so template file is smaller in size. Materials are accessible all the time from the library. And if you update materials, all the local copies of material won't update, or you'll have to update it manually.

There is one exception -  the default material, or predefined material (e.g. we use S235 steel 90% of time, so it's predefined in our template).

Well, I'm happy it worked!

Good luck!

Greg

[spence.greene]

Greg,

I did not put all the materials in my template, just updated the couple of differences, specifically to the generic material. We use a ridiculous color to flag the fact that an appropriate material needs to be selected.

Best Regards,

J. Spencer Greene

[gatnact]

So I have an issue kind of along the same lines I think. I created a new library for my materials and appearances, set it up in projects to look at the materials file, and all goes well. I can open new part, change the material, save the part, close it, close IV, reopen saved part and all the materials I have saved are exactly how I left them. 

The issue I have is sometimes IV will crash and when I reopen IV the materials that I have saved to my new custom library is completely empty. I have done this several times and ended with the same result. I have even created my library, copied it into another location, and named it something different to see if I can have IV look at a different file after it crashes. Even the renamed library file appears to be blank. Why does it do this to me?

Windows7 x32 IV 2014

[shrikant_sharma67]

hello,

i am using autodesk inventor 2012  student version. can you help me that, how to add new material in this version.

genric option is not there inventor version, kindly help

[spence.greene]

My apologies, but I am not the right guy to ask! I went from 2010 to 2013 on a network based deployment and have no access to 2012 Student Version. Best of luck to you.