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Hi JD and everyone,

I have a huge model imported from SolidWorks, which imports as a complex tree of nested Block instances. These can be exploded down to any given level.

How can I work with materials in Rhino on these objects?

Preferably, I think I would like to assign a material to a Block instance, is that possible?

Best regards,

- Björn

That really depends on lots of different factors. Most importantly, realize that the plugin does not have any ability to regulate how assignment works - you have to be able to accomplish what you want in whichever way that Rhino's material assignment allows you to.

Primarily, if you are wanting per-block assignment, you may run into some issues because in order for different copies of the same block to use different materials, the instance definition geometry must have Rhino's 'by parent' material option selected before references of it are created. If that's not the case, you will only be able to assign to them by layer. So it really depends on whether the SW file importer/exporter plugins have options for regulating how it builds the blocks - unless the import/export stuff is really comprehensive, I doubt there will be an option for controlling a block's material source.

the instance definition geometry must have Rhino's 'by parent' material option selected before references of it are created.

I just realised after reading a few threads in the rhino newsgroup... That's really too bad, since I have no control over how these blocks are created. The workflow I've come up with so far is:

1. I export the big chunks into separate .3dm files and explode/deal with materials in there.
2. I insert these separate .3dm files as new blocks in the large Rhino assembly.

Works ok, so far. But it's good to know about the "by parent" flag, that'll help in the future.

Thanks,

- björn