MDL Materials

SOLIDWORKS Visualize supports full editing capabilities of NVIDIA® Material Definition Language (MDL) materials.

You can modulate textures and edit color fields and parameters.

The creator of an MDL material defines its look and behavior. The creator specifies which parameters to show, and specifies the parameter names, value ranges, and whether the parameter can be textured.

Parameter names in MDL material are not localized.

Using MDL Materials

The NVIDIA vMaterials catalog provides access to a collection of MDL materials.

Before you begin, download and install the vMaterials catalog from the NVIDIA website:
  1. Go to the NVIDIA VMATERIALS web page.
  2. Click DOWNLOAD and follow the instructions.

To use MDL materials:

  1. In SOLIDWORKS Visualize, open a new or existing project.
  2. In Microsoft® File Explorer, browse to the folder where you installed the NVIDIA vMaterials catalog.
  3. To assign a material to a part, drag any .mdl file and drop it on the part in SOLIDWORKS Visualize.
    One .mdl file can include definitions for multiple materials. SOLIDWORKS Visualize creates one appearance for each material.

  4. To edit the material, select it in the viewport or in the Appearances tab, and then edit parameters in the Appearances tab.
    If the creator of an MDL material specifies that a parameter can be textured, appears next to the parameter.
  5. To add a texture to the parameter, click , browse to a texture, and click Open.
    The texture appears on the model, and the texture's parameters appear in the Texture subtab.
The changes you make affect only the copies of the appearance in the project. They do not affect the source appearance.