Easier Way to Switch / Toggle Material / Appearance Libraries Inside Inventor

[petestrycharske]

All,

I was working between a couple of different material libraries recently and ran into a silly, yet annoying little situation.  When switching between material libraries through the Inventor drop down list, I have to click on the drop down list once to switch libraries and then click on the drop down a second time to choose the material that I want.  I would like to be able to switch the library and corresponding material with the same drop down menu click.  I'm attaching a video to help clarify as well.  If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Hope all is well and have a most blessed day!

Peace,

Pete

[DRoam]

I agree the extra click seems clumsy and unnecessary. Really though, the entire material/appearance scheme needs a complete overhaul. It's very clumsy and convoluted. We have two built-in libraries which share a lot of the same materials and also have several which are unique to themselves. They're both cluttered with seemingly randomly-chosen alloys or other variations. We also have multiple appearance libraries with many duplicates and with differing appearances for the same object/texture.

In addition to that, we have a very clumsy system where we have to shuffle materials and appearances between the Document's materials/appearances and the standard libraries. We can't directly edit (or even view the properties of) one of the standard libraries' materials/appearances, but instead have to copy the material/appearance to the document, make changes, and add that material/appearance back to the library, then click the button to check the library back in.

On top of all that, if the current document already contains a material/appearance with the same name as a material/appearance you want to use from a library, you can't just use the library's material/appearance as expected. You have to delete or rename both the material and appearance before using the library's. If you just rename the material, and then try to use the library's material, the appearance associated with the library's material won't be brought in (and there's no warning or indication that this has happened).

Also, for whatever reason, in the Materials dropdown as well as the Appearance dropdown, the "Favorites" and "Document Materials/Appearances" are lumped into the same list, which is confusing, cluttered, and counterproductive.

To cap it all off, there's simply no good way to work with the various alloys, treatments, and coatings which metals and other materials can have.

Material is one of the most absolutely fundamental characteristics of... well, of existence, and certainly of engineering. And yet the Materials system in Inventor is so incredibly clumsy, unintuitive, unfunctional, and just a pain to work with.

So that's my exhaustive critique of the materials system in Inventor. And I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.

With all that said, user @Anonymous has posted an idea suggesting an alternate materials system, and his proposed system seems like an ideal solution to me. You can read the details and give his suggestion a vote by going to his idea here: Materials Materials Materials. If you have any other suggestions, please post them to both this thread and to tsreagan's post, as his idea has already gained considerable attention and is the most likely to be recognized by Autodesk in the near future.

[petestrycharske]

DRoam,

Excellent feedback and suggestion.  I've added my upvote to tsreagan's idea and encourage others to do so!  Hope all is well and have a most blessed day!

Peace,

Pete