How to synchronize materials

[Ros. Riha]

Users od Autodesk Archtecture are facing this every time and the others, who use xrefs in AutoCAD as well: There are multiple drawings, using the same material. As long as the name of it is consistent throughout all drawings, it is possible to manage it by changing materials only in the drawing you render final renderings from... but there are situtions, where you need synchronize materials. Now it is possible to do it manually (save to disk/reload).

Would it be possible to publish some sort of toolkit (commands nXt uses) to be able to create LISP routine to simplify this process?

[akinlolu olugboji]

A good addition to this will be for nxt to be able to read changes in material settings when the drawing is X-ref into another drawing. I assign materials by layers, if wall to is assigned as brick, that is what will show when the drawing is x-ref. Should I come back to the original file and edit the brick pattern and not re-assign another material, the edited material does not show even when the drawing is reload. It only shows when a totalling new material is assigned again.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

XRefs of materials and layers are handled by AutoCAD.  That's not going to change.  Whatever AutoCAD does with them during the xref process is what you're going to get.

[Ros. Riha]

akinlolu, the behavior you describe is exactly why I would like to create LISP routine to enable you to synchronize materials without the need of renaming them

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I might have time for one or two commands if they're not too complex.  Let me know what you need.  For example:

 

(nXtLoadMaterial materialname filename)

 

Keep it simple, or it won't get done.

[Ros. Riha]

thanks! .... nXtSaveMaterial and nXtLoadMaterial are all commands needed

materialname - where are these saved to allow the LISP routine to go through them one by one?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

In the AutoCAD material table with the prefix "AccuRender-".

[Ros. Riha]

my mistake - I did know:) ... ok then, in that case simple commands SaveMaterial and LoadMaterial would do...the rest is LISP