AutoCAD 2004 Customization Tutorial: Creating a New Material Library

By Alireza Parsai, May 19, 2003

You can create your own material library. The material library can be defined based on the materials created or loaded in the current drawing file. The following tutorial is based on AutoCAD 2004 but applicable for most releases of AutoCAD.

1. Start AutoCAD 2004.

2. Invoke RMAT command.

3. On the list to the right of the dialog box select Granite [Figure 1].

Figure 1

4. Click New. The New Granite Material dialog box appears.

5. In Material Name box type DEF-GRANITE [Figure 2].

Figure 2 - Click on image to enlarge

6. Click OK. A new material is defined and loaded into current drawing.

7. From the list to the right select Marble and then click OK.

8. Define a new material called DEF-MARBLE [Figure 3].

Figure 3 - Click on image to enlarge

9. Click OK to define and load the new material.

10. Click Material Library button.

11. Select a few materials from the list and then click import to load them into the current drawing. A list of materials will be available to the current drawing [Figure 4].

Figure 4 - Click on image to enlarge

12. Click Save As.

13. Save the file as sample.mli in My Documents [Figure 5].

Figure 5 - Click on image to enlarge

14. Close dialog boxes. You may either click OK or Cancel.

15. Exit AutoCAD.

16. Start AutoCAD again.

17. Invoke MATLIB command.

18. In Materials Library dialog box click Open [Figure 6].

Figure 6 - Click on image to enlarge

19. Locate the sample.mli in My Documents [Figure 7]. Then click Open.

Figure 7 - Click on image to enlarge

20. You can use the library now [Figure 8]. If you move the file to a folder that belongs to AutoCAD file search path. It is found automatically.

Figure 8 - Click on image to enlarge

Note: You may add new materials to the material library by selecting the materials from Current Drawing list and clicking Export.
 

About the Author