Thursday

Creating Render Material in AutoCAD - 3: Mapping

AutoCAD 2007 and higher versions

When a texture material is assigned to a surface or a solid entity, then according to the shape of the entity, AutoCAD automatically covers it with that texture material. However, thing may not work out as we expect all the times and AutoCAD may make some mistakes; or we may have some special demands.

When we discussed about material definitions, we described about tile property. This property is distributed to all of the surfaces equally in standard applications. When mapping is applied to any material, mapping area will be the area that is taken as basis for material. Accordingly, if the mapping area is larger than the surface to be covered, only part of the mapping area that covers the entity will be used; otherwise, whole mapping area will be used so that it will be repeated. When expressions are explained in words it may be a little confusing. So, it is better explained by an example like covering a cylinder, cube or sphere by using a typical woodwork ( with thick, clear veins). The way woodworks look is independent from shape, when they are massive. However, if we cover these entities, then the texture will take the shape of them. That’s what mapping is. Now, let’s continue with an example. There are 4 different kinds of mapping in AutoCAD: Continue…