CAD tip # 7034:

Question

CAD

% platform category

Cable braiding, ropes and other materials in Inventor.

If you need to represent Inventor objects and materials defined by their typical texture or surface pattern, you can usually do it by defining a display material - it is not neccessary to model the detail in 3D.

This applies to such objects as ropes, cables, braided wires (sleeves), grills, engraved texts and logos, etc.

You can specify the surface structure by applying an appropriate texture in the Colors definition in Styles (Styles and Standards > Styles Editor > Color). You can find a number of predefined textures directly in the Inventor menu (surfaces of metals, wood, plastics, stones), others can be addded easily using your own images - BMP files.

E.g. if you need to "model" a braided electrical cable, you can use the predefined texture Wire_Sleeve&.bmp or you can define your own surface material like that in the block Braided-cable:

Inventor2010

*CAD

3.11.2009 21370×

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applies to: Inventor 2010 ·

See also:
Tip 14503:	Compare the performance of creating arrays/patterns in Inventor.
Tip 14472:	Overview of CAD formats supported in Inventor 2026 (import/export/AnyCAD).
Tip 14349:	12 free material texture libraries for PBR rendering.
Tip 14281:	Mapped network drives (S:, T:, X:, etc.) are not available in my CAD application.
Tip 14075:	Overview of CAD formats supported in Inventor 2025 (import/export/AnyCAD).

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