Material Mapping

After you apply a texture to a material, you can adjust the orientation of the texture to fit the shape. This feature is recommended for advanced users only.

Texture space describes the way in which a texture is applied to an item. For example, applying a cylindrical texture space to a pipe will cause textures on the pipe to be rendered more naturally. An item's texture space may have been assigned from the original CAD application and stored in the native CAD file, or set up by using the Material Mapping feature with the options of Box, Planar, Cylindrical, or Spherical. Each texture space option applies some imaginary bounding geometry around the item and "shrink-wraps" the texture as best it can to the geometry underneath this bounding geometry.

When you have applied a texture to an item, the program will work out the best fit from the four texture spaces available. If this is not what you intended, you can edit the texture space. The options available for editing depend on the selected material mapping option.

• Planar mapping. Maps the image as if it were projected onto a 2D surface. The image is not distorted from the direction of projection but is distorted if projected onto a curved surface and viewed from the side. The image is not scaled to the object. This mapping is most commonly used for flat faces.
• Box mapping. Maps an image onto a boxlike shape. The image is repeated on each side of the object.
• Spherical mapping. Maps an image onto a spherical object. The top and bottom edges of the map are compressed to a point at the "north and south poles" of the sphere.
• Cylindrical mapping. Maps an image onto a cylindrical object. The horizontal edges are wrapped together but not the top and bottom edges. The height of the image is scaled along the cylinder axis.
• Explicit mapping. For objects that have explicit texture coordinates as part of their geometry, by default, Autodesk Rendering uses these explicit textures rather than a texture space material mapping (such as Planar mapping). Use this command to enable the Explicit texture coordinate rendering. Note that this option is unavailable if the selected object doesn't have explicit UV coordinates.