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You can use part textures to more accurately represent the real appearance of a given part material or part surface.
Using textures you define
Autodesk Inventor has a library of surface textures. You can also define, store, and apply your own textures. A texture that you define can be useful to represent a series of holes or slots in a part, for example, but there is no need to model each hole or slot for manufacturing or analysis purposes. For example, for a part such as a grill or a screen, it may be more convenient or economical to represent each hole or slot as a texture rather than a modeled feature. To that end, you can create textures with transparent pixels so that a part displays as transparent wherever those transparent pixels appear.
Defining your own textures gives you the flexibility to customize the texture color, pattern, and size precisely. You can also adjust the texture map pixel measurement and dpi resolution to create texture patterns that match the scale of the parts to which the textures are applied.
Understanding texture color and part color combinations
When applying a texture to a part, keep in mind that the texture color combined with the part color displays as the product of those colors. For example, a texture with a color that is primarily a dark gray will, when combined with a part color which is a light blue, display as a darker blue, relative to those two shades. Combining a texture with a color that is primarily red with a part color of green displays as black, as if you viewed a red object through a green filter.
If you want the texture color to display on the part with exact fidelity to the texture color as it appears in the preview window of the Texture Chooser dialog box, set the part color to white. Set each color property in the Colors field, on the Color tab, of the Colors dialog box to White. Then apply a texture.
Apply textures to parts
| | You can use part textures to more accurately represent real material textures, finishes, and patterns. |
Apply a texture to a part
Note: The Tiling Preview Slider does not modify the texture scale.
Remove a texture from a part
Set the part color to white
The texture color combines with the part color to produce the product of those colors. To have the applied texture color match the color of the texture as displayed in the preview window of the Texture Chooser dialog box, set the underlying color to white.
Create and apply custom textures
| In addition to the Autodesk Inventor default texture library, you can create your own library of textures. To create a texture map, use any image editor that creates a file in one of these formats: .bmp, .gif, .jpg or .jpeg, .png, or .tiff. |
Create a texture
Note: The following procedure creates a texture map with a pixel measurement as an approximate average of the texture maps contained in the default Autodesk Inventor texture library. You can use any pixel dimension.
Create textures with transparent pixels
You can create textures with pixels that Autodesk Inventor interprets as transparent. Transparency is useful when creating such parts as a perforated grill or screen.
You do not have to use image-editing software capable of creating transparent pixels. Autodesk Inventor uses a file name convention and bitmap interpretation scheme that indicates a specified color within the image is to be treated as transparent.
Note: The ampersand (&) can also be created by using its numeric code. Hold down the ALT key and on the numeric keypad type 038.
Apply a custom texture to a part
Guidelines for custom textures
Use this method to approximate or match the relative scale of the part to which the texture is applied. For example, use a low dpi to represent the rivet pattern on the hull of a ship or a high dpi to represent an integrated circuit.
Assign custom textures to styles in shared environments
| You can store custom texture .bmp files in the Styles library. In a shared environment, it is recommended that the CAD administrator: |
Note: You can also store custom bump maps and reflection files in the surfaces library in the Autodesk Inventor Studio environment. Refer to: Working with custom bump maps and reflection files in a shared environment.
Example
Note: The CAD administrator performs these tasks.
Step 1: Create a project file specifically for editing and defining styles.
Next, create a subfolder named Textures.
Note: All .bmp images in this folder display in the Choose Texture dialog box, accessed from the Styles Editor.
Step 2: Assign a custom texture to a color style.
Note: Refer to steps 2 -3 in Step 1.
Note: If you relocate the styles library folder, its subfolders and the texture files come with it.
Step 3: Configure the read-only styles library project file for users.
Note: Enter the path in both places to provide access to the custom textures.