Getting to Know the Revit Material Browser

If you work with Autodesk Revit, you are probably aware of or have heard about the Material Browser and know that it facilitates all the materials for a project in addition to existing Revit libraries. The Material Browser is where you create, edit, and manage materials and material libraries. Yet, I have learned that many users don’t really know about all the different facets of the Material Browser dialog box. If you are one of those users, today is your lucky day because I am going to explain each of the areas in the  Material Browser dialog box and what they do. 

The Material Browser is where you create and edit your material, and it has nine sections that display certain information. 

TIP 

Have materials in one project that you need in another? Use the Transferring Project Standards tool to bring in those materials. Some elements (such as wall types) are not accessible from a specific library. However, you can copy them from other projects.  

1. Open the project that you want to copy information from. 

2. Open the project that you want to copy the information into. 

3. In the Manage tab>Settings panel, click Transfer Project Standards. 

4. In the Transfer Project Standards dialog box, select an option in the Copy from drop-down list and then select the settings you want to copy into the current file. 

5. Click OK. 
   

6. In the Duplicate Types dialog box, click either Overwrite or New Only to apply the settings to the current project. 

I hope that you found the information on the Material Browser dialog box and the tip handy and that it makes you even more curious about Revit materials. I have written a full chapter with a hands-on practice for the content here, plus I take a deeper dive into each of the sections within the Material Browser dialog box in my Autodesk Revit 2022: Fundamentals for Interior Design book, as well as in the upcoming Autodesk Revit 2023 Architecture: Conceptual Design and Visualization book. 

About the Author

Learning Content Developer<br><br>Cherisse is an Autodesk Certified Professional for Revit as well as an Autodesk Certified Instructor. She brings over 19 years of industry, teaching, and technical support experience to her role as a Learning Content Developer with ASCENT. With a passion for design and architecture, she received her Associates of Applied Science in Architectural Drafting and Design with a four-year core curriculum in Interior Design and has worked in the industry assisting firms with their CAD management and software implementation needs as they modernize to a Building Information Modeling (BIM) design environment. Cherisse continues to expand her knowledge in the ever evolving AEC industry and the software used to support it.

Follow on Linkedin More Content by Cherisse Biddulph