Materials does not appear on imported objects

[Anonymous]

Hi

I have imported a dwg/dxf model of a wheel into a Revit family. The layers in the dwg/dxf is set to BYLAYER and I have added a new layer with a new name in Autocad before importing it into the Revit family.

Under Manage, Object Styles, I have changed the material, but it does not appear in the family and also not in the project after loading it in.

What am I missing??

I´m working in Autodesk Revit 2021/ Windows 10 Pro 1909 64-bit.

[constantin.stroescu]

I suppose you have already allocate parts of your AutoCAD drawings to different Layers (having in mind that each layer is a distinct material in Revit)

Once imported the entity into Revit Family, go to Manage >Object Styles > Imported Objects - and expand the Category (+) so to see all the layers from AutoCAD .

Select from Material Column and click on the right icon of 3 points so to open Material Browser of Revit . Change the existing material with your custom one

[Anonymous]

Hi Constantin

Thanks for your reply.

I´m pretty sure I did all of the points you are referring to, but it´s still the GLOBAL material which is being displayed on the model even though the layer is registered as "Default New Material" under Material....

[constantin.stroescu]

choose an other material from other Libraries or Duplicate and Edit an existing one and make settings in Graphics and Appearance , so to be able to control how material looks in Nonrealistic and Realistic Views.

When Duplicating Material , take care in Appearance to click on Duplicate Asset button (upper right button-see red arrow) so not to make an identical instance of the original.

[Anonymous]

Hi Constantin

Thanks again. I tried the above too and the materials are working on shapes created in the family, but not on the imported items.

When I import the file it comes up with a warning, but it looks perfectly fine. Could this be what´s causing the challenges? 

[lucdoucet_msdl]

@Anonymous 

---

I have imported a dwg/dxf model of a wheel into a Revit family. The layers in the dwg/dxf is set to BYLAYER and I have added a new layer with a new name in Autocad before importing it into the Revit family.

---

You mention that the "layers" are set to "BYLAYER". Do you mean that the Autocad entities material properties are set to "BYLAYER"? If so, that doesn't necessarily mean that the object does not have a material override assigned to it.

Autocad allows you to assign the material of entities several ways: Globally, Bylayer, Byblock, by instance or by subobject. Revits re-mapping of materials bylayer in linked or inserted CAD objects will only work on Autocad entities where the material is obviously set to Bylayer and no material overrides are applied.

You can check the material assignment by selecting an object and looking for Visualize section of the  properties window:

Then also select all entities in the DWG and go to the Visualize tab | Materials group | Remove materials command. This will remove all material overrides.

Lastly, set your Autocad view settings to Realistic to ensure that the entities are displaying the correct materials before importing/linking to Revit.

Hope this helps,

-luc

[syman2000]

In the AutoCAD, you want to select the object and apply the material to the object.

Select objects and apply material

Once you done that, it will carry over the material when you link or import into Revit

When you link it in, the material will embedded into the object

[Anonymous]

Hi Luc and Syman2000

Thanks for your answers - this was very helpful.

Unfortunately I think there is something wrong with the Autocad wheels I´m trying to import, as they still won´t react to the materials. I made some tests with other dwg-imports and what you are describing above works perfectly fine... 

Any other ideas to how I can fix the dwg-files of the wheels?

[lucdoucet_msdl]

 @Anonymous 

Would you mind posting the dwg/dxf file to the forum so that I can take an in depth look at the material assignments and the type of geometry it was modelled with?

-luc

[Anonymous]

Hi Luc

No, not at all - here you go 🙂

[TracySM · Accepted solution]

Years later but...explode your object in CAD before importing into Revit. I just had the same problem. Maybe this will help someone else in the future.

[mhiserZFHXS]

Exploding a CAD file in Revit should be a LAST RESORT, not some nonchalant typical workflow. There are plenty of ways to do this better, foremost being to just model things in Revit.

[jquarry]

@mhiserZFHXS

tracyVZHKC mentioned to explode the model in CAD before importing to Revit, not while in Revit. You are correct, exploding an imported CAD file in Revit should not be exploded except for a last resort. Even then I typically open a new fresh working model file to do the exploding and then just copy and paste it into my project model after all the editing has been done.

[drawings2Y5A7H]

Is there a way to create duplicate the layers after it is imported to revit.

I am using a revit family which is an imported cad Object in my mode. I have this family in multiple instances. But i want to assign different material to each of these instances. went into Object styles and changed the material. but its sort of a global material. Tried creating a copy of the family. But the layers associated to this is still under the same. I dont have AUtoCAD. Any way to create an instance material. The instance material I have created seems to not have any impact on the family material.