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Applying color to "standard" materials

I've been using the new (to me at least) SolidWorks material capability and like it a lot but have one question.

Is there a straightforward was of changing the color on a part level of a part. You might want to do this when you have a piece of aluminum anodized, Titanium tiodyzed, or steel coated with molybdenum disulfide....

What's the consensus out there? What would be really cool would be to be able to define coating spec's and then apply as suitable to the appropriate surfaces (perhaps even adding the dimensional buildup).

Don't know if that's possible.

Thanks,

=========================================================================== Chris

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Chris Dubea
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Nobody? Wow! =========================================================================== Chris

Reply to
Chris Dubea

"Chris Dubea" wrote

Yes. When you are applying the material type, you need to uncheck the "use material colour" option (can be edited later also). Then just pick the "edit colour" icon, select the part at the top of the fly-out feature manager (assuming you want to change the colour of the entire part) and choose a colour. If you want to just change a face or body, then choose the apprpriate filter next to the "selected entities" box.

Sounds a bit ambitious, though I can see that sort of functionality being added at some future release.

If the dimensional build-up is important to you, I'd use part configs to show machined and coated versions. You could also create a "coating" sketch where you draw 2 parallel lines and dimension the spacing equal to the coating thickness. Name the dimension "coating" and then use equations to add/subtract this figure from the dimensions controlling the surfaces that are coated. The equations can be suppressed in the uncoated ("machined") config.

Regards, John H

Reply to
John H

H'mmm. I can uncheck this before I pick a material, but once I select a material from the list, the checkbox is grayed out and is no longer selectable. Am I missing something?

I am thinking about adding this functionality to XMLPropWorks, my configurable custom property manager. At this point, I wouldn't think it was too hard, but you never know as I really haven't investigated it much

In some instances build up is a real issue. Some not. Having the ability to define a coating with thicknesses would be pretty cool. =========================================================================== Chris

Reply to
Chris Dubea

...

Actually, there is an even easier way. Pick the solid body(ies) from the Solid Bodies listing in the FMT and then you can apply a color over the whole body. You can remove the color just as easily as well.

Cheers =========================================================================== Chris

Reply to
Chris Dubea

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