When I import a model from say Grab CAD and they are something other than a *.3dm it seems almost impossible to apply a material, is there a workaround?
Hi Cayenne,
What file format are you importing? If it is STEP, then they may come in as blocks, in which case you may need to explode them or use BlockEdit to modify them.
More information would be helpful
Thanks,
– Mary
Instead of listing the various files I had trouble with I included the information “something other than a *.3dm”…hmm lets see…solidworks, sketchup, stl, step, autocad, and others. Is there some general info that relates to imported models and materials, or should this work no matter what the file…well not including step?
Cayenne,
the Rhino 5 help files are your friend here, lots of great general and specific info sitting in there. The search and index tools are all cross referenced nicely. In the table of contents go to Object Properties>Material and you’ll find some tidbits.
To assist you a bit in your quest for general info: any surface-like entity imported into Rhino will either be a mesh, surface or polysurface, all of which will accept material property edits. As Mary stated above, there’s a good chance your grabcad came in as a block (block is same as an instance). Blocks cannot be directly given a material. You need to edit the entities contained within the block. Simply doubleclick on the block and you should be able to edit the underlying objects normally. OR explode it and edit normally. You will find some blocks will be composed of blocks within blocks, requiring further exploding of the individual sub-blocks.
oh! and then I just found this. Just skimmed it but might have some generally helpful info about grabcad exporting:
hope this helps a bit.