About Applying Materials

Materials can be applied to specific products.

The table below summarizes the objects to which you can apply materials.

Object	Product	Core Material	Covering Material
Support	Product reference		
	Product instance	N/A	
Representation References	Representation instance (3D shape, cgr, or .model)		
	Features in a 3D Shape (body, 1D, 2D, and 3D elements)		
	Features in a FEM (properties)		N/A
	Sides of Package Design Features (printed sides, internal and lateral sides)	N/A	
	Face	N/A	
	Simulation connection property of an engineering connection		N/A

The two types of support on which materials can be applied are indicated in the table below:

Support	Description
Design	Refers to: Product references Product instances 3D shapes Design features inside 3D shapes (body, surfaces, and faces)
Evaluation	Refers to: FEMRep Simulation properties inside FEMRep Simulation properties inside MCX Design features inside SIMShape

The tables below summarize the possible actions to perform according to the support, product maturity, and role.

Design support:

Product Maturity: Private or In Work	Apply Material	Change Applied Material	Remove Applied Material
Leader or Author			
Contributor			

Product Maturity: Frozen or Released	Apply Material	Change Applied Material	Remove Applied Material
Leader or Author			
Contributor			

Evaluation support:

Product Maturity: Private or In Work	Apply Material	Change Applied Material	Remove Applied Material
Leader or Author			
Contributor			

Product Maturity: Frozen or Released	Apply Material	Change Applied Material	Remove Applied Material
Leader or Author			
Contributor			

A core material applied to a part body element takes priority over any core material applied to representation instances or a product.

A material applied to a product, its representation, or its part body appears in the Materials node below the product.

Tip: Apply materials directly onto the highest support.

1	Product
2	Representation
3	Part Body
4	Materials
4.1	Steel (Part Body)
4.2	Iron (Representation)
4.3	Gold (Product)

In the example above, steel material (4.1) is applied to the part body, iron material (4.2) to the representation and gold material (4.3) to the product.

The priority rule respects a bottom-up scheme where the material applied on the part body (4.1) takes priority over the representation and the materials applied on the product.

A covering material propagates to all representations in the tree below the support to which the material is applied.

When applying multiple covering materials to a single representation, the following rules determine which covering material takes priority:

• A covering material applied to a higher support takes priority over a covering material applied to a lower support.
• If multiple covering materials are applied to the same support, the most recently applied material takes priority. If you apply more than three covering materials to the right support, the newest material overwrites the third material.

Tip: Apply materials directly onto the highest support.

1	Product
2	Representation
2.1	Representation
3	Materials
3.1	Leather
3.2	Aluminum
3.3	Metal

In the example above, leather, aluminum and metal covering materials are applied to the same support.

The covering materials propagate to all the representations of the support and the most recently applied covering material takes priority over the other covering materials.