Mapping BIM Materials

In BIM files, such as .ifc and .rvt, material name is a property of entities of the BIM model. Materials in BIM software represent real materials, such as Steel, Concrete, Glass. They specify the graphical appearance in drawings. Additionally, where the application provides support for it, physical and thermal properties, and additional information, such as manufacturer and cost.

The Material Mapper palette lists the material names that exist in the loaded BIM files and lets you map those BIM material names to the material available in the BIM Drawings Materials Styles Library.

The BIMMaterialMapper command displays the Material Mapper palette.

When you load BIM files into the current DWG file, the available materials are loaded as well. For each BIM entity, the Material property in the Properties palette displays the material specified in the BIM file. After mapping the materials from the BIM file, the Material property of each BIM entity will display the corresponding material name that you mapped to in the Material Library.

When you create or refresh a drawing, and view it isolated on sheet, BIM entities are represented according to the style definition of the material in the Material Library.

About Materials

Using BIM materials you can control the graphical appearance of entities in drawings that you created from the BIM model.

The software provides a Materials Library. Materials from the Materials Library specify graphical styles which the software uses to display BIM entities. Each material specifies the graphical style attributes for a section cut and surface of each BIM entity.

Graphical style of each material specifies:

• Hatch properties, such as name, scale, rotation, and lineweight
• Edge and boundary lineweight and color,
• Shading color and transparency

Note: You cannot add, remove, or edit materials available in the BIM Material Library.

When you create or refresh BIM drawings, the material styles defined in the CAD software differentiate a section cut from the surface of each entity showing appropriate graphical representation. For the same material, the surface representation is tipically lighter lineweight than cut representation, and uses a different hatch pattern or has no hatch.

For example, a drawing displays a BIM entity of material concrete using a concrete hatch pattern (AR-CONC) if the drawing’s cutting plane cuts through the BIM entity and no hatch when the same BIM entity is visible but the drawing's cutting plane does not intersect it.

After mapping the materials from the BIM file, BIM entities will be represented in drawings according to the style definition available for the corresponding material in the CAD software.

To display the Material Mapper palette:

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the ribbon, click BIM > Materials > Material Mapper.
   • Type BIMMaterialMapper.

To hide the Material Mapper palette:

• Type HideBIMMaterialMapper at the command prompt.

To map materials to materials from the CAD software:

1. On the Material Mapper, for each material from the list of material names that exist as properties of entities in the loaded BIM files, specify from the drop-down list in the Materials Library column the material you wish to map to.

   Click and use the available options to filter the material list.

The Material Mapper Palette

The Material Mapper palette displays the list of all materials from all BIM files that you loaded in the current DWG file. For each material from the list, you can select the corresponding material from the materials library available in the CAD software.

Displays options for filtering the materials from the list.

• IFC Materials. Displays only materials from the .ifc files loaded in the current DWG file.
• RVT Materials. Displays only materials from the .rvt files loaded in the current DWG file.
• All. Displays all materials from all BIM files loaded in the current DWG file.
• Mapped. Displays only mapped materials. For mapped materials, a preview displays in the list.
• Not Mapped. Displays only the materials that you have not mapped yet.