trouble with belt

Started by aebstract, August 26, 2011, 04:38:05 AM

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aebstract

Hello,
I'm trying to create a white plastic belt which happens to be a mesh-like material. I've gotten pictures and made a bit of a texture for it and even followed along with what one person posted to try in another thread about net material. So I took a white nylon material and applied my texture saved as a tiff and preserved transparency, which is fine and I can make work. I'm attaching a small preview so you can see, the part is made using the "belt feature" in solidworks. The problem is obvious, the belt texture turns 90 degrees when it hits the rounded portion of the belt. Is there a way to fix this, get around this? I've tried a few options with the texture but I'm not sure :(

Chad Holton

Hi aebstract,

Before exporting you should make the cylindrical part of the belt a different color than the flat part of the belt. Use the same texture on both but then this way you can fine tune the mapping for each to match. Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Chad

aebstract

Yeah I was really really hoping that wasn't the only solution, it took me almost 2 hours to import this model in to keyshot because of some network issues we have right now. We're actually getting a completely new network and server setup today so this shouldn't be a problem in the future. I think for right now I'm going to have to photoshop the round part, which is gonna suck. :( Thanks for the response

m2tts

Have you tried mapping to UV? Definitely with a box map applied you will see the texture take a 90 degree turn around the sides of things. If you UV map, then theirs a chance the UV directions will match up as the surface wraps around the cylinder. You could also use a spline to create the surface for the conveyor; that would make it one continuous face that wraps on the rollers. To do that you would draw the profile of the belt with the slot sketch tool, then use the "Spline Tools"; "Fit Spline" on the sketch segments of the slot.

aebstract

Tried the UV Mapping just now and it didn't fix that issue. I just needed to really change the color of that face and it would have been okay. :( Oh well, I'll remember to try the spline on the next thing like this.