Adding new materials to the database
The material database can be expanded by adding new constituent materials or by copying (and editing) existing materials in the Material Database dialog.
Creating new materials
To add a new material to the database, enter a name for the new material in the corresponding box in the lower left corner of the dialog (e.g., Material_New in the example below). Click Add.
Material_New appears listed in the left panel and default values appear in the right panel under the General and the Solid tabs.
When a material is newly created, its Material Type is set to Solid per default and therefore it appears under the Solid tree listed at the very end.
In the next step, the Material Type and its properties can be set under the corresponding tabs as described in Edit existing material database entries.
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Copying existing materials
Alternatively, an existing material can be copied by selecting the material and clicking Copy …. With this option all material parameters are still available and don't need to be edited from scratch, but can be modified according to your needs, which is a great benefit.
A dialog is shown, which asks if the material database should be saved before adding the copied material. It is recommended to choose Yes to proceed.
In the next step, the name for the new copy of the material can be selected. In this example, the default name is kept. Click Run to create the material.
Then, the new material is shown in the material database and can be edited as explained before.
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Saving the material database
When all parameters are set as desired, either continue with the next material or click Save Database at the bottom of the Material Database dialog to save all changes to the database and close the window.
The material database entries are stored as *.txt files in the current material database folder (either the default GeoDict material database or a user-selected database).
The filename of the *.txt file is the name of the material in the database (here: Material_New.txt). This text file contains all information about the material database entry. It can be shared to other users and copied to other GeoDict material databases.
These text files can be opened and edited with any text editor, such as Notepad++. All parameters can also be changed directly in the *.txt file. As an example, the file for Aluminum is shown.
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