MATERIALS SPECS - better database

[danmachen]

A constant problem when working with inventor is that the material database is not large enough!

It only contains for example Mild Steel, Steel and Aluminium 6061 (a grade not readily available in the UK & Europe). For engineers this is simply not large enough or specific enough.

It does not include the various 5000 series, 6000 series and 1000 series alloys. It does not have listed any of the various types of Steels, coppers, titaniums, polymers, etc.

Our solution to this is to have to spend the time creating our own database and populating properties.

This is something that could be imported by Autodesk in an automated way from a reliable materials source.

Check out this website for a comprehensive database of materials and their alloys, material properties all included!!!

http://www.makeitfrom.com/

Building on what has been stated at the link below, I would prefer to have the heat treatment listed for materials, as well as material and alloy only.

ALUMINIUM 6082 - T6

(MATERIAL),(ALLOY),(HEAT TREATMENT)

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/materials-materials-materials/idi-p/3920608

having these properties automatically in Inventor means these fields can be searched and standardised in applications such as Autodesk vault.

This means supply chain teams can also build on that information.

Perhaps material costsgo up - this means supply chain could then filter for components for cost down exercises by material, etc.

[danmachen]

Thanks for that comment! This is exactly what I was thinking.

[n.schotten]

And don't forget to add the RAL color pallete to the colors list.

[n.schotten]

As for picking a material and than the subset (alloy),

Why not use the categories to filter out most undesireables and have the material and alloy type as one item. The catergories can be manually added (currently) so there could be a category 'aluminum' and 'steel' and 'stainless steel' etc. Or steels, non-ferro, plastics, ceramics etc etc.

Category->alloy/type->surface finish (with thickness)->color.

It cleans up the material & appearance lists greatly. It is just that there needs to be a 'translator' for files with older material links...

[Anonymous]

Also can you go to an XML based database. The current system is not at all accessable for macros and scripts. At my previous company, our material library contained custom fields for stock material PN, stock material cost, finish, shorter description for title block, etc. We used a VBA macro to access these and apply them to the part. I have found no info on accessing your current database file.

[AndrewJBecker]

I love this idea, it should also make it easier to add a new type of material because it might be an alloy already in your library that you just want a different surface finish for.

Definite thumbs up from me.

[DRoam]

The entire material/appearance scheme is in desperate need of 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. Autodesk, the materials system in Inventor desperately needs to be on your high-priority focus list.

[timdown73]

Please Autodesk, please, please overhaul the materials library system.  Droam's comments above are spot on.  A much more intuitive UI is very much needed and long overlooked.  And by the way, add 316 S.S. to the standard list of materials PLEASE!!!

[Anonymous]

"The current material situation is a bit cumbersome."

No... the current system is complete garbage...

• Half the fields are completely useless
• Several are pre-populated with junk text
• Appearances seem such an afterthought with the multiple databases, similar names, disorganization
  • Coming from Solidworks, this is difficult to even look at. SW you can just pick a texture and a color and almost always get the appearance you need. Further customization is also very straight forward... I don't even try any more unless I have to... 
• The database is worthless once you assign a material. If a material property was incorrect when you assigned it, you have to go to every single part to correct it. Or if you want to change how Aluminum renders, guess what, you get to either do appearances on every surface or re-do the materials on every part.

I just spent the last few hours trying to get my BOM properties to match and appearances to look right. This should have taken minutes not hours. Fix this please!

[DRoam]

Hi @Anonymous, good suggestion. Please also vote for this request for a complete overhaul of the materials system, to something more streamlined and intuitive (in other words, less of a total and complete headache): Materials Materials Materials (currently has 186 votes). I would bet that an overhaul of this sort would go a long way in enabling better support for multiple international standards.

[DRoam]

A few related suggestions:

• Importing material libraries from matweb (87 votes)
• Mechanical Design Material Library (47 votes)
• MATERIALS SPECS - better database (36 votes)
• Appearances (and other Properties) Should be Shown in Material Browser (17 votes)
• Material and Appearance Categories in Drop Downs (16 votes)
• Easier Way to Switch / Toggle Material / Appearance Libraries Inside Inventor (12 votes)
• [International] Materials (7 votes)
• Material and appearance library (2 votes)

[dan_szymanski]

We will no longer leverage the "Under Review" status, so I am setting this Idea back to Gathering Support.  -Dan

[dan_szymanski]

We will no longer leverage the "Under Review" status, so I am setting this Idea back to Gathering Support.  -Dan

[Anonymous]

This is the largest number of votes I've ever seen for an idea.  why is this not at least partially implemented already?

Please stop making us get a degree in relational database management before we can assign a material and a colour to a part.  Please give us a table we can export to Excel, edit and import back instead of the convoluted and cumbersome method we need to use - described above very ably.

[DRoam]

I love this idea and think about it frequently when I need to use a specific alloy or call out specific surface finishes or paints. It would be fantastic to be able to choose from a simple material list (steel, aluminum, bronze, etc.) and then from a more complete alloy library, and then apply various surface treatments and coatings on top of that.

The following is an an idea related to the surface finishes/coatings side of things: A real surface treatment/finish/coating (paint) tool. It's basically a proposal on how the surface-treatment side of things could work.

Autodesk tends to like more granularity when it comes to scoping and implementing Ideas, so my hope is that this helps separate out the "materials" and "surfaces treatments" sides, so that they can feel free to tackle one first and then the other, rather than waiting for the development resources to do both at the same time (although I definitely wouldn't complain if we got both at the same time).

I hope Autodesk recognizes the crucial, downright fundamental importance of materials and surface treatments in manufacturing, and gives those systems the overhaul they desperately need, sooner rather than later.

[CGComer8YEQB]

Oh, yes, please.  If this could be combined with my suggestion to leverage the new Model States with regards to Material Appearance on a per-state basis, I wouldn't have much to complain about on the material side of things (other than the cumbersome manner of creating new materials).

[JohnOFarrar]

THIS is an ideal system, please make it real.

[jimmymitchell5369]

While this is a great idea, while Autodesk is implementing this can they fix up how the the colouring works. I can place a part in an assembly and it will randomly nominate a colour scheme. Sometimes its the colouring set up in the part, sometimes its the default, sometimes one of each. And with no way to fix it. Its like a lottery, only where you loose time and gain frustration.

[joeTNW8R]

This must be a big undertaking, but the glitch/delay of switching libraries in large assemblies has led to several crashes and many lost hours of work.

Single autodesk library would solve many problems with visibility, color and even FEA.

Somehow the default to inventor library causes an error when a material is selected from the autodesk library and the analysis is opened again. Single library would solve this error.