Navigation:  Weight & Cost Tracking > Entering Stock Materials

To simplify the process of assigning weight and cost properties to objects, you may create a library of stock materials, including point, curve, surface, and solid materials. For each material, you specify the name, weight property, and cost properties.

In the case of a Point Material, the actual weight and cost are entered.

For a curve, the weight, material cost, and labor cost are entered per unit length. Similarly, surface and mesh materials are entered on a per unit area basis, and solids on a per unit volume basis.

The Material Name does not have to be unique; each material has a unique identifier that is not shown.

The Stock Material Library is contained in a file on your computer (by default, C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\DRSC3ATC\Orca3D\StockMaterialLibrary.xml), and so is available any time you are using Orca3D. Any materials that are used in a model are also stored with the 3dm file. If a material is updated in the Stock Material Library, and then a model that uses that material is opened in Rhino, Orca3D will automatically update the object to reflect the new data from the Stock Material Library. See Exporting & Merging Material Libraries.

If a 3dm file is read that has objects with weight/cost properties that are not included in your library, the properties will remain with the objects and will be used in the computation and reporting of the total weight, cg, and cost. In the Material Library section of the report, the material names will be preceded with (local).

If you give your 3dm file to another Rhino user who does not have Orca3D Weight & Cost Tracking, the data will remain intact so long as the object is not deleted. If the other user does have the Weight & Cost module, the Material Properties will be shown on the objects, but will not be shown in the other user's Stock Material Manager.