MATERIAL LEGEND

An important element of each design process is the appropriate materials that the user can assign to components. WOODEXPERT provides the possibility to comprehensively define materials and, most importantly, share them not only within, but also outside the project.

At the beginning, it would be appropriate to clarify what is meant by “comprehensive definition of materials”. The materials created in SOLIDWORKS do not have many properties that are helpful in the furniture industry. The material legend of WOODEXPERT 3D eliminates these shortcomings. Materials included in the legens are based on standard SOLIDWORKS materials with the ability to give them specific characteristics typical of materials used in furniture manufacturing.

The materials in the legend are divided into two groups:

1. Support materials:

– panel

– solid wood

– profile

2. Finishing materials:

– edging

– veneer

– varnish.

Each material in the legend is derived from a base attached to SOLIDWORKS. Additionally, WOODEXPERT provides a defined, separate library of materials which is normally included in the basic installation.

On their basis legends are created containing all the materials necessary for a given project, with the possibility of extending them by subsequent color schemes. You can save any legend so that other people working on the project can use it again.

What does the material look like in the WOODEXPERT legend? An example is given below:

It contains information about the base material (chipboard), descriptive data (name, comment, option names), parameters characterising its format, and default processing allowances that you can change at any time by using the “Edit allowances” function. Each of the above described materials has different characteristics adapted to its optimum presentation on drawings, bills of materials and formats sent to CAM.

For comparison, the definition sheets for two different material types are provided below:

How does working with materials in WOODEXPERT looks like in practice? Please watch the video.

Marcin Jórasz, WOODEXPERT specialist