Materials & Textures

DETERMINE VISUAL FUNCTIONS AND TASKS

Setting material properties in AGi32 when importing a CAD model [00:07:46]

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Video Transcript:

Materials can be applied in two different ways when using a model imported from another program in AGi32.
The first technique is to specify the materials during the importing stages. The second option is to go under Rooms/ Objects and select Surface Edit. In this video, the first technique is discussed.
It is easier to apply the materials at the import stage when importing your model from a CAD program. Let’s take a look at how this can be done.
Before setting the material properties, one important thing to keep in mind is to put surfaces with different materials and textures under different layers in the CAD program. This makes the material assignment process more streamlined when you bring your CAD model into AGi32.
Go under File- Import – select file. Click OK to import the file.
The screen shows the import dialog box in AGi32. Notice that the layers of the model show up under import options and the import mapping option. By layer import mapping will allow you to quickly apply surface properties to entities based on the entities' layer.
This technique may work better because you can select more than one polygon at a time by virtue of them being in a layer.
Take a look at the Surface Properties dialog box. You can begin by adding a label to a surface.
Selecting the Removed option removes selected surfaces from calculation consideration.
You can specify the type of surface. Default is double-sided. Change the type if needed. Is a surface is a glazing, change it to daylight transition glass transparent or diffuse.
If the surface receives exterior daylight, change the daylight exterior setting; Selecting this option assigns selected surfaces as Daylight Exterior surfaces which impacts daylighting computations only.
Change the color setting to match the desired color. You can change the color based on its RGB or HSL values, if you know the reflectance of a color, you can enter it in the box on the right. You can also add a color to favorites if you plan to use it later. The reflectance value changes with the color that has been set.
Alternatively, you can assign a texture to a surface; AGI32 has a good range of common architectural materials that you can choose from such as brick, carpet, wood, metal, etc. You can browse the texture in a given category. Once a texture is selected, you can specify the size, tile it, rotate it. You can also click on Browse to select a texture not in the AGI32 database. You can then add it to your database.
You will notice that a texture overrides the color, reflectance, and transmittance of a surface.
Transmittance value can be assigned to surfaces. For transparent surfaces, color and transparency level can be specified.
Specularity values range between zero and 1, where any value greater than zero results in a high gloss surface in Ray Trace imagery. Surfaces can be made to look shiny by adding a specularity value to them. This is visible after raytracing.
The glossiness attributes of surfaces can be adjusted as well. Glossiness values range between zero and 1, where any value greater than zero in a low gloss finish in Ray Trace imagery (must be assigned in conjunction with specularity).
Color Bleed values range between zero and 1, You can individually change the color bleed scale of surfaces. In real life, the human eye compensates for the color cast we see on the walls and ceilings as white.
Mesh level can be set on a per surface basis, instead of using adaptive subdivision. Patch level or emitters per surface and element level or receivers can be set. But watch out – finer mesh will refine but increase the rendering time! Mesh level changes results in finer or coarser surface sampling (e.g. change from default settings).
You can specify a value for luminance which is the absolute “brightness” of a surface. This is useful for surfaces that emit light, say in defining neon lights.
Selecting the Direct Flux only option assigns surfaces to receive no reflected light, this is useful for optimization purposes.