[RobMitchell]

Hi everyone. Long time reader, first time poster.

I've been using the Maxwell plugin for SolidWorks for a while now and it's been amazing. One thing I've had trouble with since the beginning though is applying decals/textures to certain surfaces. I've read as much as I can find on this subject, and while applying decals to a flat surface seems okay, applying them to a curved or cylindrical edge always seems to cause problems.

I've taken screen grabs of the main example of this. The first image shows the front of the model with the texture applied. The second image shows the right side of the same model. As you can see, as it gets to the edges, the texture begins to stretch:

- Image 01
- Image 02

The stretching occurs as the texture curves to the left and right sides of the model, whereas the front and back are generally okay. It seems like the texture is acting as if it's being applied to a flat face as opposed to a cylindrical one. Could this be the problem, or would it be something else? Can this be solved using options in the plugin?

Thanks very much for reading,

Rob.

Some other notes:
The scale of the texture is the same as the model.
I'm using SolidWorks Professional 2008 (v0.0) and the Maxwell 1.7.0 Plugin.

[JDHill]

Hi Rob,

The plugin doesn't add any new texturing capabilities, it uses whichever texture-coordinates are created by SolidWorks. In this case, I couldn't be sure why SW would project a texture like that. I tried to duplicate this myself, but have not yet - it wraps a texture around a cylinder as expected, and also around a cylindrical surface created by sweeping a circle along a spline. There are some jagged texture-intersections on the swept surface, but they are not like your example.

How exactly was this cylinder created - if I can duplicate this, maybe I can find a way for you to work around it. Is it a simple part, a piece of a multi-body part, or a part inserted into an assembly with the material being assigned there?

JD

[RobMitchell]

Hi Rob,

The plugin doesn't add any new texturing capabilities, it uses whichever texture-coordinates are created by SolidWorks. In this case, I couldn't be sure why SW would project a texture like that. I tried to duplicate this myself, but have not yet - it wraps a texture around a cylinder as expected, and also around a cylindrical surface created by sweeping a circle along a spline. There are some jagged texture-intersections on the swept surface, but they are not like your example.

How exactly was this cylinder created - if I can duplicate this, maybe I can find a way for you to work around it. Is it a simple part, a piece of a multi-body part, or a part inserted into an assembly with the material being assigned there?

JD

JD,

Thanks for the quick reply. The cylinder was created as a simple drawn circle, extruded upwards. This particular example is a piece of a multi-body part, however it happens on all three instances you mentioned.

[JDHill]

Hmm...well, feel free to send me this .sldprt (email is in my forum profile) and I'll take a look, since I can't seem to duplicate it here.

JD

[RobMitchell]

Thanks, JD. I sent the e-mail.

Rob.

[RobMitchell]

Hate to bring this up again, but it seems like Maxwell is finding more trouble while mapping textures through SolidWorks. Here are a couple of screengrabs showing a standard seamless brick texture (thanks Artaud ) applied to a flat surface. As before though, it seems to do it with all materials, in all models...

- Image 01 (default settings and scale)
- Image 02 (rotated 90deg)

Again the material seems to be thinking it's applied to a cylindrical plane, when obviously it isn't. It's becoming quite a big problem now as it's really the only thing holding me back from completing renders.

[JDHill]

It's not Maxwell that's having a problem - it just uses whatever UVs SolidWorks gives it. So the question may become: how are you making the block? I've observed that some construction methods cause SolidWorks to generate completely bogus texture coordinates...assembly-cuts in particular - it doesn't seem to know how to map onto the 'virtual' object that results from the cut.

Aside from that, and since you say it is happening with all of your models, I would also check your system/document options. Loading things lightweight, etc...some of those things can also prevent things from working as expected. I guess too that since you have this everywhere, yet even with your model I was unable to duplicate it, it may have something to do with your video card. That's just a shot in the dark, but maybe SolidWorks uses it for generating these things.

Here's what I get here when I drop that MXM on an object in SW:



Sorry I can't give more exact advice, but it's difficult to guess what would cause the issue when I can't duplicate it here. Let me know if you have any more details.

Cheers,

JD

[RobMitchell]

Hi JD,

Thanks again for the quick responses. In reply:

It's not Maxwell that's having a problem - it just uses whatever UVs SolidWorks gives it. So the question may become: how are you making the block? I've observed that some construction methods cause SolidWorks to generate completely bogus texture coordinates...assembly-cuts in particular - it doesn't seem to know how to map onto the 'virtual' object that results from the cut.

The screengrab examples were just made from a simple extruded box. Default settings really, with the material applied to the surface as I would normally do it.

From your experience, should SolidWorks automatically recognise what UVs the texture should be set to? I remember before I was able to map textures perfectly onto flat surfaces, but I think I've always had trouble with rounded ones. Also if I apply decals and textures in SolidWorks/PhotoWorks, they apply correctly.

Aside from that, and since you say it is happening with all of your models, I would also check your system/document options. Loading things lightweight, etc...some of those things can also prevent things from working as expected.

I did try variations of these settings at the beginning, just to see what the outcome would be and if it could fix the problem without having to bring it up here, but sadly I had no luck and the results remained the same.

... it may have something to do with your video card. That's just a shot in the dark, but maybe SolidWorks uses it for generating these things.

Aha. Might be onto something here. We have recently started working on a new computer with a completely different spec and video card. Though we upgraded the computer the same time we upgraded Maxwell, so it didn't click initially as it being a PC problem.

I'll have a look into it and let you know of any progress.

If you or anyone else knows of any problems like this and has any suggestions - please feel free to post them here.

Thanks!

[RobMitchell]

A small update...

JD, I was going on what you said about the graphics card, so quickly hopped onto the old machine (which, just to mention, is 32-bit as opposed to 64-bit) and put a quick part together. I applied the textures as I normally would and they were fine. I was even able to save the model and bring it across to the 64-bit machine where it stayed looking normal:



I could also edit and add new materials and they'd map properly... But when I start a new part and apply a material (on the 64-bit computer), the textures become all distorted again and won't map correctly.

It's obviously a computer problem then... But what are the options? Going between the two computers isn't really possible as 90% of the time the other machine is running as a Mac system for another worker. I suppose a new graphics card is the obvious answer... but it's something I'd love to avoid if possible. I'm not sure.

[JDHill]

Well, at least that's something to go on.

Before you go out and get a different card, I'd mess with the settings on the existing one. I'm running SW2008 on a 8800 GTS...no RealView with that consumer card, so I did some things to make it show up as a Quadro FX 4600 so SW would use it (it's basically the same inside, I guess). So, after doing that, it took me a few more hours to get all the OpenGL settings right so I could see any textures at all with RealView on; one wrong setting and it just would not happen...change another setting and some other funky thing would show up. Seems SW is pretty sensitive to this stuff, I just haven't had it actually affect the basic ability to map textures - even if things were messed up in the viewport, they'd render okay.

[Tea_Bag]

I'm running SW2008 on a 8800 GTS...no RealView with that consumer card, so I did some things to make it show up as a Quadro FX 4600

How did you manage that JD? sounds intrersting

[JDHill]

Google got me this far: http://forum.naswug.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&p=276

Beyond that you're on your own.

[Tea_Bag]

Thanks

[RobMitchell]

Small update here. Upgrading so SolidWorks 2008 v4.0 seems to have sorted it. Very odd, but I'm not complaining. :p

Thanks again for the help and suggestions in this thread.