Physical materials

Commands

BLMATERIALS

Opening the physical materials editor

Creating physical materials

You can create physical materials in either the Project or the Library database. You can create new materials from scratch or copy them from an existing material.

Creating a physical material from scratch

Select a material in either the In Project or the In Library material list.

A material named New is added to the selected database. Now you can edit the new material.

Adding a physical material as a copy of an existing material

Editing a physical material

Select the material you want to edit in either the In Project or in the In Library list on the Physical Materials dialog.

Identity tab page

* Click the Browse button () to open the Material Classes dialog where you can create new material classes.

Appearance tab page

• Section settings

  The Section settings define the hatching of the section boundary lines.

  1. Click the Hatch Type button and select the type of the hatch: None, Solid, Linear, Predefined or Custom.
  2. Do one of the following to select a predefined or custom hatch pattern:
     • Click the Hatch preview and select the pattern in the the Hatch Pattern dialog box.
     • Click the Hatch Pattern Name button and select the pattern in the list.
  3. Define the Scale.

     The final pattern scale in a section is the product of the Scale setting of the physical material and the value of the Scale property of the BIM section. As a result, the printed scale of the hatch pattern is independent of the section plane scale.

  4. Set the Rotation angle.
  5. In the Layer field, either type a name or click the arrow button and select a layer in the list.
  6. Optionally, check the Annotative option.
• Elevation settings

  The Elevation settings define the surface hatching of the section background.

  See Section settings above, except for the Scale setting. The elevation hatch is independent of the Scale property of the BIM section.

• 3D settings

  The 3D settings define the rendering material.

  Double-click the preview image and select a material in the Select Render Material dialog box.

Properties tab page

1. Edit the Tags field: tags are separated by commas.

   Tags are case sensitive.

   Click the Browse button () to open the Tags dialog.

   
   
   

2. Click the New Item button () to add a new tag at the bottom of the list.
3. Select a tag in the list and click a tool button:
   • : Edit the selected tag.
   • : Delete the tag.
   • : Move the tag up.
   • : Move the tag down.
4. (Optional) Expand the Information properties and fill out the necessary fields.
5. (Optional) Expand the Physical properties and specify the physical properties of the material.
6. Expand the BIM properties.
   • Union Section: Select Yes to remove connection lines in sections between different solids of this material. Select No to keep the connection lines.
   • Union Elevation: Select Yes to remove connection lines in elevations between different solids of this material. Select No to keep the connection lines.
   • Select a Function from the drop-down list.
   • Variable Thickness: select Yes to allow a variable thickness. Select No to not allow a variable thickness.
   • Type a default thickness in the Thickness field.
7. Click OK.

Copying materials between the project and library databases

1. Select the material(s) in the source database.
   Press and hold the Ctrl-key to select multiple materials.

   
   
   

2. Drag the materials to the target database.

   The selection set is copied.

   If one or more materials already exist in the target database, an alert box displays:

   
   
   

   Click the appropriate button to either overwrite, duplicate or skip the existing material. If the Apply to all materials in this operation option is selected, the option applies to all existing materials. Duplicated materials have an index number added to their name.

Deleting physical materials