Manage Material

Instructions for Use

The Manage Material function can be used to view, modify, edit, and export the materials of model data, and intelligently solve texture occlusion issues based on AI occlusion repair capabilities.

To use the AI occlusion repair capability, you need to first obtain the resource extension package, and then configure the environment according to the instruction file in the extension package. The address to obtain the extension package is: SuperMap Official Website->Platform Software Download page (http://support.supermap.com.cn/DownloadCenter/ProductPlatform.aspx)->SuperMap iDesktopX specific version location->file with the product package name containing Extension_AI 3D.

Function Entry

  • 3D Geodesign tab->Model Operation group->Material drop-down menu->Manage Material

Operation Steps

Viewing and Editing Model Materials

  1. Open the data source containing the target model dataset, and add the model dataset to the spherical scene.
  2. Click the Manage Material button in the Material drop-down menu of the Model Operation group under the 3D Geodesign tab, or directly click the Material button in the Model Operation group under the 3D Geodesign tab to open the "Manage Material" dialog.
  3. Source Data: Click the drop-down arrow on the right of "Model Layer" to select the model layer of the object.
  4. Material List: View all materials of the object through the material list, and use the toolbar to create, import, export, and delete materials.
    • The list area displays all materials of the current model object.
    • Add: The Add button on the toolbar can be used to create a new material. After clicking Add, enter the material name and select the material type in the "New Material" dialog, then click OK to complete creation. The material name serves as a unique identifier and cannot be duplicated. Therefore, when creating a new material with the same name as an existing one, ensure the texture and color match exactly.
    • Import: The Import button on the toolbar can be used to import XML or JSON files containing material information. After closing the Manage Material dialog, only materials assigned to the model object will be saved.
    • Export: The Export button on the toolbar can be used to export all selected materials with material information and textures, currently supporting JSON format only.
    • Delete: The Delete button on the toolbar can be used to delete selected materials.
    • Assign Material to Selected Object: The Assign Material to Selected Object button on the toolbar can be used to batch assign the selected material to model objects selected in the scene. Note: Before opening the dialog, ensure the target model objects are selected in the scene.
  5. Edit Material: The name and specific parameters of the selected material will be displayed on the right of the material list. Adjust the material through parameter values; currently supports editing of standard materials and PBR materials.

Editing Standard Materials

After selecting a standard material in the material list, the Manage Material dialog will display parameters for editing standard materials on the right. Set the following parameters and click Apply to apply the edited material to the model object.

  1. Coloring:
    • Material Color: Set the material color via the drop-down color palette.
    • Transparency: Adjust transparency by directly entering a value or clicking the right arrow and sliding the pop-up slider, with a range of 0 to 100. 0 means the layer is completely opaque; higher values increase transparency; 100 makes the layer fully transparent.
  2. Texture Editing: Edit texture maps via Add, Replace, Delete, and Settings buttons.
    • Add: Used to create a new texture map. After clicking Add, select the specified picture file in the "Browse Folder" dialog and click Open to add.
    • Replace: Used to replace the picture file of an existing texture. After clicking Replace, select a picture file in the "Open" dialog to replace the selected texture.
    • Delete: Used to delete the selected texture.
    • Settings: Used to set offset, rotation, scaling, and export of texture maps. Click Settings, then configure texture coordinate offset, scaling, and rotation in the Texture Editor panel, and perform AI occlusion repair.
      • Replace: Supports replacing the picture file of an existing texture. After clicking Replace, select the specified picture file in the "Browse Folder" dialog and click Open.
      • Delete: Supports deleting the current texture picture file.
      • Export: Supports exporting the texture as PNG format to a specified path.
      • Supports setting texture XY coordinate offset, scaling, and rotation.
      • AI Occlusion Repair: Use polygon or rectangle tools to frame the area for repair on the texture image. After framing, click Image Repair to perform the repair. Repeat framing and repairing as needed. After completion, hold the Compare button to view pre-repair and post-repair texture maps. Click Done to apply the repair results to the corresponding material.

Editing PBR Materials

Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials use physics-based parameters (roughness, metallic, etc.) to describe optical properties, enabling more realistic materials and surface details. Set the following parameters and click Apply to apply the edited material to the model object.

Base Color

Base color is the object's intrinsic appearance color, excluding any lighting effects like shadows or highlights. Set the base color by directly specifying the color or adding a texture map representing the base color. Specific parameters are:

  1. Texture Settings: Used to set the texture map file representing the object's surface color. Click Settings to configure texture coordinate offset, rotation, scaling, and perform AI occlusion repair in the "Texture Settings" dialog. Refer to standard material editing for details.
  2. Color Settings: Used to set the object's surface color. Click the drop-down menu to specify a color in the color chart.
  3. Translation Motion: Enables translation motion of the base color texture. Supports setting speed along U and V directions in texture units/second.
    • Period: Sets the time for a single translation in seconds.
    • U: Sets the translation count of the base color texture along the X-axis. Positive values move along the positive X-axis at the specified speed; negative values move along the negative X-axis.
    • V: Sets the translation count of the base color texture along the Y-axis. Positive values move along the positive Y-axis; negative values move along the negative Y-axis.
  4. Scaling Motion: Enables scaling motion of the base color texture. Supports setting scaling speed along U and V directions in texture units/second.
    1. Period: Sets the time for a single scaling in seconds.
    2. U: Sets the scaling count of the base color texture along the X-axis (positive values compress against the X-axis; negative values stretch along the X-axis).
    3. V: Sets the scaling speed of the base color texture along the Y-axis (positive values compress against the Y-axis; negative values stretch along the Y-axis).
    4. Figure: Example of Base Color Material

Metallic Roughness

Metallic/Roughness (metallic workflow) is a common PBR material approach, using metallic and roughness parameters to control surface reflectivity and light response intensity.

Without a metallic roughness texture, the effect is solely determined by metallic and roughness coefficients. With a texture, the effect is determined by multiplying the texture with the coefficients.

Figure: Example of metallic effect variation with metallic values (roughness at 0; metallic values from left to right: 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1)
Figure: Example of roughness effect variation with roughness values (metallic at 0; roughness values from left to right: 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1)
Figure: Transformer metallic effect
  1. Texture Settings: Use a texture map to control variations of metallic and roughness on the material surface. The R channel controls metallic; the G channel controls roughness. When using a texture, set metallic and roughness coefficients to 1.
  2. Metallic Coefficient: Controls how "metal-like" the surface appears, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher values increase metallic level, making surface color more environment-reflected and intrinsic color blurrier. Lower values reduce environmental influence, enhancing intrinsic color.
  3. Roughness Coefficient: Controls surface roughness, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher values increase roughness. Roughness affects light reflection: rougher surfaces have higher micro-surface detail and blurrier environmental reflections; smoother surfaces have stronger reflectivity and clearer environmental reflections.

Emission

In low-light scenes, self-luminous textures can make parts of an object appear internally lit (e.g., building windows), often used for night scene effects.

Without a self-luminous texture, the emission effect is solely determined by the emission color value. With a texture, the effect is determined by multiplying the texture with the color value.

Figure: Self-luminous texture effect
  1. Texture Settings: Self-luminous texture map file.
  2. Color Settings: Controls the color and intensity of surface emission.
  3. Translation Motion
    • Period: Time for a single translation.
    • U: Texture movement speed along the X-axis (positive values move against the X-axis; negative values move along the X-axis).
    • V: Texture movement speed along the Y-axis (positive values move against the Y-axis; negative values move along the Y-axis).
  4. Scaling Motion
    • Period: Time for a single scaling.
    • U: Texture scaling speed along the X-axis (positive values compress against the X-axis; negative values stretch along the X-axis).
    • V: Texture scaling speed along the Y-axis (positive values compress against the Y-axis; negative values stretch along the Y-axis).

Normal

A normal map is a special texture, often blue-tinted, that adds surface details like bumps, grooves, and scratches to a model, enhancing its three-dimensional effect.

Figure: Normal map effect comparison (left without normal map, right with normal map)
  1. Texture Settings: Normal map texture file.
  2. Intensity Factor: Influence degree of the normal map texture.

Occlusion

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) texture is a grayscale map where white indicates areas receiving full indirect light and black indicates no indirect light. It simulates self-shadowing in crevices to enhance light-dark details on models.

Figure: Occlusion map effect
  1. Texture Settings: Occlusion map texture file.
  2. Intensity Factor: Influence degree of the occlusion map texture.

Mask

Currently used only in the Unreal Engine refinement workflow for night scene emission effects. Refer to the SuperMap Hi-Fi 3D SDK for Unreal help under the Fine Model Data Beautification Process topic. Mask texture effects are visible only in Unreal Engine.

Figure: Example of using multiple textures in PBR
Figure: Overall material effect
  1. Texture Settings: Occlusion map texture file.

Advanced Settings

  1. Alpha Rendering Mode: This parameter allows you to select whether the object uses transparency and, if so, which blend mode type.
    Figure: Cutout effect
    • Opaque: Default setting, suitable for ordinary solid objects without transparent areas.
    • Mask/Cutout: In this mode, there are no semi-transparent areas; textures are either fully transparent or opaque. Complex cutout effects can be created with transparent base color textures without complex modeling.
    • Transparent: Renders by blending with the background based on the Alpha value from the texture or material color. Higher Alpha values make the foreground clearer and background blurrier, and vice versa. Suitable for realistic transparent materials like plastic or glass.
  2. Alpha Cutoff Threshold Setting: In mask rendering mode, areas below this transparency value appear fully opaque; areas above appear fully transparent.
  3. Double-Sided: Whether to enable double-sided rendering. Disabled means single-sided rendering. Single-sided rendering renders only one side of the model surface facing the camera, improving performance. Double-sided rendering renders both sides, increasing computational overhead.
Tip:

If loading exported JSON materials in SuperMap iClient3D, ensure referenced texture map dimensions are powers of 2 (2n), otherwise they may not function.