Navisworks Materials - Bylayer Materials from Autocad

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am trying to understand how Navisworks pulls materials from AutoCAD and vice-versa.

A few examples.

#1

I created a library of materials for Navisworks, loaded to Navisworks only.

I created then an NWF from the dwg model

I assigned materials in Navisworks

When opening the files a few days later some of the elements in the design return to white appearance and a Bylayer material is created in Navisworks for these elements

The material I assigned is not applied anymore and I need to delete the bylayer material just to get the color back (from original color layer from ACAD).

#2

In Navisworks I apply materials that I created.

Later on when I open the original design in ACAD I look in to PURGE and all the materials I once created for Navisworks in Navisworks, now exist in ACAD. They are not applied to anything but they are listed there. 

Can anyone shed some light? 

Maybe someone knows of a WhitePaper I can refer to on this issue.

Thanks

[georg.grebenyuk]

Hi, @Anonymous 

Your first question - let's use NWD data format, because NFW is actual only moment of first editing and after every changing in your initial AutoCAD file, you can lose all progress in file (f.e. missing some material)

About second question ... and future problems - to reduce errors count you should use ones versions of ACAD and Navis, because there were problems of unviewing materials on different versions. 

"They are not applied to anything but they are listed there. " - may be it's really result of dynamic changing of file. Try to investigate divergent of ACAD model with Navis's materials at static variant (NWD f.e.  ....?)

Also about your experiment - I'm not sure that understood you correctly about materials in DWG in Purge function - can you publish this file on forum or part of it for researching?