Inventor^® Training

Make Inventor Models More Realistic with Custom Surface Textures - Page 2

By David Melvin, PE, TEDCF Publishing

Setting Transparent Texture Maps
Transparent texture maps are 97 pixels square because the pixel in the lower right corner defines the color that will be transparent. For example, if the pixel in the lower right corner was flat blue, all the flat blue pixels in the surface texture would be transparent. Also keep in mind that the 97th column and 97th row of pixels will not be part of the surface texture.

Save the Bitmap image
You can save the Bitmap image in the current project folders, in a local folder, or a shared library folder. If you want to be able to access the texture from any project, you can also save it in the surfaces sub-folder of the Textures folder in the Inventor install folder.

Apply the New Custom Texture
Now that you’ve created and saved the Bitmap image, it’s time to apply it to a part. Open a part file that doesn’t have a texture applied to it, and then open the Manage tab and select the Styles Editor command.

Expand Color on the top left of the dialog box. Scroll down and select the Default color style. Check the Use Texture Image option in the Texture tab of the Color Style panel.

If you saved the image in the surfaces sub-folder in Textures folder of the Inventor’s Application folder, use the Application Library setting and scroll though the textures to find your custom texture.

If you saved the image in a personal folder or a project folder, select the Project Library option. You can browse through folders on the right to find the correct folder, and then scroll though the textures in the top window. Once you find your image, select it and then click OK. Click the Save button at the top of the Styles and Standard Editor dialog box, and then click the Done button on the lower right of the dialog box.

When the dialog box closes, your part will have the new texture on its surfaces.

Why is this important?
Knowing how to do this gives you the ability to create parts that look very close to the final product. If you can take a picture of the material used for a product, you can make your parts look very close to the real thing.