How to Maintain Material Property

Hi there,

I am using AutoCAD 2008 and have a simple 3D LED that I use as a template to drop into various other drawings. The main unit is just a basic solid representation of the body, pads, etc but I have attached a clear diffused material to the lens to you can see into the inner die. Obviously the vsmaterialmode is set to 2 in the template drawing.

My question is, why, when I copy the whole LED to another drawing does the lens appear solid again. I checked the vsmaterialmode is set to 2 in the new drawing, the material is assigned, etc but the only way to get the lens to go clear is to select it, go to the properties window and change the 3D visualization - material to something else and then back to 'lens'. It will then appear as it should. Is there a way to stop this happening?

I am only self taught AutoCAD so have probably got some really bad habits - sorry.

John

How are you dropping the LED into other drawings? Are you copying and pasting or are you inserting as a block? I don't know if it makes a difference, I'm just trying to get more information.

I was just selecting all and copying with base point, then pasting into new drawing. I have just tried your alternative method of creating a block with wblock and then inserting into a new drawing - but it was the same, even when I turned vsmaterialmode to 2, I had to explode the block, select the lens and go to properties to change it.

The funny thing is I have a second material defined in the drawing that is again a clear layer and it is always ok.

I do have the same problem with other drawings though so don't know if its a setting problem or just how I created it.

I have attached the drawing so you can see if I have done anything wrong.

Thanks for your help.

XP-E 3D.zip

I think the reason this was happening is that my 'conceptual' visual style was set to material display = Off in any new drawing I paste the item into. I take it that by default this is the case and you need to just change it each time.