Retaining material info from creo when importing into keyshot 8

[murgiddy]

I have a part from creo that I saved out as a .prt.  The properties in creo say that it has a material assigned of high impact polystyrene.  But when I import into keyshot, it doesn't appear to have retained any of that information upon import.  Any insight? Am I missing a checkbox somewhere that saves that info?  Thanks!

[designgestalt]

hello Murgiddy,

I am not sure, what you are trying to achieve, but KS will only import the surface data. Any "technical" data will be lost ...

cheers
designgestalt

[mattjgerard]

Yeah, creao prt and asm files don't keep material info other than color when importing. You can setup material templates that will map the names of materials coming from creo to materials in KS so that they will automagically apply them when imported, but that only works if your engineers are being consistent with material names.

I will be trying to implement this in our company, but with over 400 engineers and dozens of managers, its going to be an uphill battle.

[murgiddy]

Well, I'm trying to figure out a way to take the metadata that is already embedded in my company's engineering files and transfer it to Keyshot.  I'm a novice at Creo, so I'm wondering if I'm just not getting the settings right.  The part has a material assigned in Creo, in model properties the material is HIP_NMM - the high impact polystyrene.  I'm using the creo to keyshot plugin.  I would expect when I hit the render button in creo and it imports the part into keyshot, when I look at the material that is assigned, it would say HIP_NMM because it's pulled that info from Creo.  But instead it says the part number and then what appears to be an RGB value. I'm not expecting it to create a polystyrene material for me, I'm expecting it to keep the label of polystyrene.  Does that make sense?   Or am I just not thinking about this correctly?  Do I have to set up a material template FIRST that says anything labeled with HIP_NMM should be assigned a material that I create in KS?   Thanks!

[murgiddy]

Ok, wait a minute, I think I got it.  I set up a material template in ks that said any part that comes in with a material assigned with HIP* should get be assigned a blue anodized metal (just for testing purposes).  Then I went back and used the creo link on my part.  And... it worked.  I just wasn't understanding before how KS knew what material was assigned in Creo because I wasn't seeing that anywhere in my imported model.  So it's just happening behind the scenes, I guess?

[INNEO_MWo]

Here is a misunderstanding.
Creo saves MCAD material information as mtl files. This mtl contains material parameters like density to calc the weight and other for FEM simulation or bend tables, xhatches, etc.
But KeyShot saves materials information to render realistic images. The KeyShot materials (also mtl files) contains parameters like diffuse color/texture, reflections/specularity, etc.
The pedant to a KeyShot material is a color (stored in creo as dmt).

So in creo you have to configure a global.dmt table. This enables creo to connect a creo material with color information. This is an option in the creo material file. So when you assign a specific material to a part, the model color will be changed.
A creo color contains RGB color in the diffuse channel and also a color name.

KeyShot will read the name and translate the RGB values.
You'll see both in the details if the model is imported directly or transfer via the plugin.

To summarize both:
Define creo materials with colors that has specific color name defined.
Use a material template in KeyShot to map the right material to the creo color name.

It isn't that complicated and work well if creo configuration is harmonized to the KeyShot materials.
It works fine in several processes, automatic configuration and different environments (PDM, MBD, ...)


I know this topics aren't described not so detailed, but I hope it helps to find your process.

Cheers
Marco (consultant at INNEO solution -> PTC channel partner and KeyShot platinum reseller and a lot more)


PS: written with a mobile phone

[murgiddy]

Thank you, that does help.  I'm not sure if my company's engineers assign a color/dmt to our parts.  I will have to get together with them to see if that is part of their process.