[Steven Houtzager]

Hello,

I am just learning this SolidWorks Pluggin, but I know Maxwell using the FormZ pluggin. It is a good bit different. Is there a recommended way to assign Maxwell materials to an object that has several lofts, holes, and rounds. The part is one solidworks part file. Sometimes I will select an face or round of the part and then drag and drop a maxwell material on it from the database manager. Sometimes it updates the face just fine, other times it does not. I am looking for a consistent method.

Thanks.
S. Houtzager

[JDHill]

The best thing would be to get familiar with how SolidWorks deals with material precedence, since the plugin follows the same rules. So basically:

1. face-assignment overrides both feature- and body-assignment
2. feature-assignment overrides body-assignment
3. component-assignment overrides all other assignments

If you open the Object Properties tab in the top of the plugin's task pane, it will show you where the currently-selected entity is getting its material from. If it is assigned directly (i.e. if you select a face which has a material assigned directly to it), that will be indicated. If it has no direct assignment, but is instead picking up its material through the precedence rules, then the entity it is getting its material from will be shown there as a hyperlink (i.e. if you select a face with no direct assignment, but whose body has a material assigned, then there will be a 'Body' hyperlink). Clicking on that link will select the entity indicated.

You can also walk up the chain by, for example, selecting a face and clicking the green 'up' arrow in the Object Properties toolbar; as you do, you will select the face's parent feature, then that feature's parent body, then, if the document is an assembly, that body's component. And so on, until you reach the top. At each point, you should see which, if any, material is assigned to the currently-selected entity.

[Steven Houtzager]

Yup I understand the hierarchy now.

1. Can you tell me the process of applying the materials?

2. Do I drag and drop the material onto the part in the viewport or the listing of components?

3. Which part do I drag and drop the material onto in order to cover the whole part?

This morning I dragged and dropped a material onto the my body part. It renders correctly but the viewport OpenGL preview shows to old color.

4. How do i get that to update correctly? I have been able to get it to update before.

Steven Houtzager

[JDHill]

Hi Steven,

Sorry for the delay - I was busy getting a minor update ready, which you can read about in my latest forum post. On your questions:

1. if you have no object selected, and you then drag/drop a material over an object, the material will be assigned at the body level. If, on the other hand, you have pre-selected an entity (or entities), then the material will be assigned to those. So to assign to a face, pre-select the face, then either drag/drop the desired material, or right-click it in the materials tab and choose 'Assign to Selected.'

2. you drag and drop them on objects in the viewport. Alternatively, you can (as noted above) select an entity, or set of entities, and assign to them all at once by right-clicking the material and choosing 'Assign to Selected' from the material's right-click menu.

3. partly answered in the first point, the answer depends on whether you are working with a part or an assembly document. If it is a part document, select the desired body (you may want to enable the Body selection filter in SolidWorks) and the assign the material using drag/drop or the material's right-click menu. If you are working with an assembly, you need to decide whether you are trying to assign the material to all instances of a particular body, or just to one. Parts in an assembly are not unique with respect to materials -- when you assign to a face, feature, or body, you are really assigning the material in the part's SLDPRT document. If, however, you select the part at the component level and assign a material there, the assignment will only exist in the current SLDASM; that is, it will override the materials assigned in the SLDPRT document.

4. sometimes it is necessary to use the plugin's 'Refresh Viewport Materials' command -- this is found in the toolbar at the top of the plugin's Database Manager window. Let me know if that helps in this case, or if there seems to be some other issue.

That said, there were some material assignment/retrieval issues that I found and fixed in the 2.0.6 plugin update I posted about a few minutes ago, so you may want to try using this new version and seeing if it takes care of any obscure problems you may have run across with the 2.0.5 release.

Cheers,

JD