Seeing Clearly in ADT2006

A problem with the render material for the Clear Glass material in several of the style source files that ship with Architectural Desktop 2006 has been identified. Rob Finch of Autodesk has posted the steps needed to fix these source files in a post to a thread in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006 Discussion Group, which I have reproduced below. Steps 4 - 6 can also be applied to any files already created in 2006 which do not have the correct render material assigned to the Clear Glass material.

1. Start Architectural Desktop and open Content Browser.
2. Browse down Render Material Catalog to Door and Windows, then Glazing.
3. iDrop the "Doors & Windows.Glazing.Glass.Clear" material to a Tool Palette in Architectural Desktop. This could be to any of the palettes as you so choose. The reason for putting it on the Tool Palette, rather than directly into the dwg is to be able to apply it to multiple dwgs.
4. Open up each of the styles drawings, in turn, from the relevant units folder, e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu\Styles\Imperial
   • Curtain Wall & Curtain Wall Unit Styles (Imperial).dwg
   • Door Styles (Imperial).dwg
   • Door-Window Assembly Styles (Imperial).dwg
     Material Definitions (Imperial).dwg
   • Window Styles (Imperial).dwg
   
   Same principle for Metric and Metric (D A CH)
5. Right click on the Glass material and select "Import Render Material". This will cause the Import/Export - Duplicate names dialog to open. In the Merge Styles list, select Overwrite Existing.
6. Save and close the drawing. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until all such drawings have been rectified.

Once done you can either leave the glass clear material on the tool palette or remove it.

5/8/2005 Update: I had problems getting the clear glass material to update in a test file I did using ADT2006. I have posted a reply indicating this in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006 thread where Rob Finch originally posted the above solution. I will update this post with any new developments that occur.

5/10/2005 Update: Rob Finch posted back with the suggestion to link the file to VIZ Render, then drag the clear glass material tool from the VIZ Render tool palette and drop it into the ADT file. If you can not see the ADT file on screen, you can drag the tool down and hover over the ADT button on the Windows Task bar to bring the ADT window to the top. Move the mouse over the ADT drawing area before releasing the left mouse button to drop the render material into the drawing. Choose to overwrite the existing render material. You will be prompted to create a new ADT material definition that uses the redefined render material; you can choose Cancel. The render material correctly overwrote the old definition using this method, and I can see through the glass material.