Crowdsourced Materials Library

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to share materials quickly and easily with other users with Fusion 360? 

My current problem - the one that leads me to ask this - is that we're doing some a quick activity in my freshman engineering course involving a concrete retaining wall. All I want to do is model a 10 foot section of a retaining wall and have them change the physical material to concrete; concrete isn't available in the material library. We can change the appearance to concrete, but it's the density, mass, etc. that is really what we're after because we're talking about forces and stability.

Having students all go through the process of creating a new material is more hassle than it's worth for a problem like this. A 10 minute problem becomes a 2 class day problem.

In addition to my original question, it would be nice if Fusion 360 have a forum that allows people to create a crowd-sourced library of materials available for download. Maybe even allow some upvoting/kudos for materials that have been verified to have accurate physical properties and appearances. 

[TheCADWhisperer]

I am kind of surprised that Fusion does not have direct access to the Autodesk Material Library.

[lucasproko · Accepted solution]

Hey @Anonymous,

You've touched on an area that we can admit Fusion doesn't handle as smoothly as we'd like to. There will be a day when we have cloud accessible libraries that are shareable amongst teams and classes, however this is not currently on the immediate roadmap so I cannot speak to when that day will come. 

As far as a workaround goes, one way to share materials that is easier than re-creating them for every person is for one person to create the material, and then add it to an f3d file that they share with others. The material will then be accessible to anyone who opens the file, and they can right click the material in the Physical Materials dialog and Add to Favorites which will allow them to then use that material in any design. I'm not saying it's the most elegant workflow, but it may be possible to work a version of this into the work you do with students. For instance, you could invite them into a project where there is a file that has all the custom materials you'd like to use and they then add them all to their favorites and can use them in their own designs. Please follow the below images for a step by step of this workflow.

Pick a material similar to concrete and Add to FavoritesRename itChange the characteristics you care aboutAdd the new material to your design and share itWhen the other users open this design, they can then right click the material and Add to Favorites

@TheCADWhisperer, there are a number of different Autodesk Material Libraries. Which one are you referencing in your message?

[TheCADWhisperer]

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lucasproko wrote: 

@TheCADWhisperer, there are a number of different Autodesk Material Libraries. Which one are you referencing in your message?

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Accessed via Autodesk Inventor Professional.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @lucasproko for the info. The method makes sense for creating and sharing a favorite. I'll look into that.

I guess I'm still curious as to why concrete wouldn't be a standard material included in the library, but I'm a HS teacher and I'm sure there's a good reason for it. I do know that it was available when we used Inventor to create models, so I was surprised when it wasn't available in Fusion 360.

Thanks again!

Brett