Assign aliases for materials

[whunter]

Idea/request:

Assign aliases to existing Fusion/Autodesk materials.

Why?

There's already a big amount materials available in Fusion 360 and most of the time, for me in any case, it's just the name of the material that needs changing or tweaking. For example, Steel, Mild I'd like to see as MILD STEEL, but it doesn't really require a new file to be created, just a name and or description change since I'm happy with the density, appearance, etc.

How will it work?

Make a table accessible in the Hub with columns showing the Autodesk names of all the Fusion 360 materials and columns showing my names (aliases) for those materials. If I leave an entry for, say, a material name in a row empty, then Fusion uses the Autodesk name, if it sees an entry for a name, it uses my alias. One could do the same for density and other physical properties.

In the 2D (drawings) environment, these aliases should show up in the Parts List (BOM).

[colin.smith]

The entire handling of materials will be reviewed this year so any comments on how to improve material interaction is welcomed.

[whunter]

I'd like a simple way of creating my own small databases; one for the material's physical properties and one for appearance attributes. This should be integrated into the CAD software, not something separate.

A spreadsheet type interface with an option to add custom columns and ways to concatenate different column entries (per row, of course) into new entries. The ability to change the case of a names (e.g., Steel, Mild vs STEEL, MILD). The ability to change the opacity of a material quickly in the modelling environment (by say, RMB). A "format painter"would be welcome too.

It would also be great if one could share material and appearance databases with other users.

I realize most/some of this is already implemented in Inventor/Fusion, but the interface should be simpler. I think spreadsheet-like, because 99% of CAD users know how to use spreadsheets.