Automatic Material to component application

[RoboCutters]

I am certain that like me, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who want to import whole models created in another CAD program and have the ability to easily assign materials to those models automatically for rendering purposes.

Currently when importing whole models, it is only possible to assign materials for rendering to similar components by dragging the material to the component, then all similarly named components are automatically assigned the same material, BUT not ALL components that are of the SAME material are automatically assigned.

There is a function to keyshot where you can import full models as STP files or other formats, then assign a custom library of materials to the model. The library assigns materials to the model components based on the component name.

For instance all components that have been assigned as 'bolt' can automatically be assigned a material.

Also, similarly named components of varying size can also have material assigned automatically. For example, in a model there could be several components ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands of the same component but something is different about the component compared to other very similar components.

For instance bolts or screws of different lengths, aluminum extrusions of different widths, height or length.

If we take the extrusions as an example, there may be extrusion sizes of:

Based on component name, width, height, length

ext 20x80x100

ext 20x60x200

ext 40x160x2000

Each is different in its own way but ALL are the same material.

In each case however there is a constant, the name. So in Keyshot we are able to assign a wildcard in the material library so that ALL extrusions are assigned the same (Satin aluminum) based on the wildcard ext* = 'satin aluminum'

The same would apply to bolts, again using a similar format to above, we could have dozens of the following components in varying diameter, type and length:

Steel Bolt, M5 x 50

Steel Bolt, M6 x 20

Steel Bolt M8 x 50

Hex Bolt M5 x 15

Hex Bolt M5 x 50

Hex Bolt M5 x 25

Domed Bolt, M5 x 20

Domed Bolt, M5 x 35

and so on.

Again the constant is the part name identifier so again a wild card can be introduced for each component to assign a material automatically from the assigned library.

I have attached a screencast demonstrating this feature in keyshot: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/87b7bd7e-4026-415e-913b-cf37c1b4e900 

The process is:

Demonstrate non-automatic material assignment

Undo

1. Create a custom library

2. Insert a part name with a wild card

3. Assign a material to that component

4. Apply the library to the model

Repeat.

Easy, easy, easy...