Using Materials Specified by Other Users;; CARA Material Database

If you would like to use CARA room designs or 3D Objects created by other users who use new materials that they have added to the original CARA Material Database, the following problem may occur if you have added new materials, as well.

Problem

All surfaces of room walls or CARA 3D Objects are characterized by the acoustic properties of their surface materials. Those are stored in the CARA Material Database. These materials are referenced by unique Id numbers. By adding new materials to the database by means of the CARA Materials Editor the resptive Id number will be continuously incremented.

E.g., if different users (A and B) add one specific material M to their CARA Material Databases, it is not assured that material M will get the same Id number in both databases since one of these users (or both) may have added already one or several new materials before.
User A has designed a special 3D Object using material M and user B wants to insert this 3D Object into one of his room designs. First, this 3D Object has to be copied into the CARA subfolder " ...\CSY" of user B and afterwards it has to be inserted into the respective room design. Next, material M has to be reassigned to the respective surfaces of the (new) 3D Object.

In case of material M is not yet included in the material database of user B - which is highly probable - and assuming that also user B has expanded his material database by some new materials, a somewhat more complex procedure has to be applied.

Your Situation

If you face that problem as described above, you may select one of three choices. Which of these is matching best your current situation?

There is no need to keep your previously specified materials:
please continue reading here!
You want to use your previously specified materials further on and additionally the other user's new materials, but not together within one single room design or 3D Object:
please continue reading here!
You want to use your previously specified materials further on as well as the other user's new materials, possibly even within one single room design or 3D Object:
please continue reading here!

Solutions

There is no need to keep your previously specified materials.

Your existing material database may be replaced by the one of the other user. For this, you copy the file CARAMAT.rfl of the other user directly into your CARA main folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\ETSKIEL\CARA22P) and accept that your existing database file will be overwritten. Now the room designs and 3D Objects of the other user and the CARA Material Database on your computer are synchronized.

ATTENTION: Replacing your old material database by the one created by the other user will also delete your previously added materials. Consequently, all of your room designs containing some of your customized materials can no more be acoustically evaluated.

You want to use your previously specified materials further on and additionally the other user's new materials, but not together within one single room design or 3D Object.

Rename your existing CARA Material Database (file CARAMAT.rfl in the CARA main folder) to e.g. my_CARAMAT.rfl. Next, copy the material database of the other user (CARAMAT.rfl) into your CARA main folder on your computer. Now, you may read and evaluate the room designs (and 3D Objects) of the other user.
Using again your original room designs requires renaming of CARAMAT.rfl to e.g. other_CARAMAT.rfl and of my_CARAMAT.rfl back to CARAMAT.rfl.

Note: Apparently, there cannot be one room design or 3D Object featuring your materials and the materials of the other user at the same time!

You want to use your previously specified materials further on as well as the other user's new materials, possibly even within one single room design or 3D Object.

This is the most flexible solution, but requires a bit more effort. First, rename file CARAMAT.rfl in the CARA main folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\ETSKIEL\CARA22P) on your computer and change it to e.g. my_CARAMAT.rfl and then copy CARAMAT.rfl of the other user into your CARA main folder.
Afterwards you open the material database with the CARA Materials Editor (accessed from the "Options" menu in CARACAD, room design program) to examine the new materials entered by the other user (from Id number 78). Please write down the Id number, name, description, material group (name and number), texture number, and the sound absorption coefficients "alpha" of the respective new materials. Close the CARA materials Editor.
Next, remove the file CARAMAT.rfl (of the other user) from your CARA main folder and rename your file my_CARAMAT.rfl back to CARAMAT.rfl. Open the CARA Materials Editor again and add the new materials of the other user to your material database. Write down the correlation of the "original" Id numbers (the ones of the other user) and the new ones.
In the last step you have to reassign the new materials of the other user to all the respective walls in the room designs (of the other user) which you have copied into the CARA subfolder " ...\CAD" before. For this, use the Id number correlation table mentioned above.