SolidWorks Service Pack 4.0 has been released and this update brings more functionality to textures. You can now add a custom texture folder with .JPEG, .BMP and .PNG images and have those images mapped to your parts using the texture tool. These textures will also show in your 2D drawing views of the parts with textures, if a shaded view mode is selected.

To create custom textures:

1. Create a folder in your installation directory where you want to store texture files.
2. Place any files to use as textures in the folder you created in step 1. The images must be in .jpg, .bmp, or .png format.
3. In the SolidWorks software, click Tools, Options, System Options, File Locations.
4. In Show folders for, Select Textures then click Add.
5. In the Browse For Folder dialog box, browse to the folder you created in step 1.
6. Click OK.

The next time you apply a texture, the folder path appears in the Texture Property Manager in the Texture File Locations list, and you can select your custom textures.

In order for textures to appear in the right aspect ratio the image files must be in a square pixel resolution format, i.e. 120 x 120, 400 x 400 or 1024 x 1024 etc. Also when you put the images into a texture it will automatically tile the texture if you scale it down. You may need to use photo-editing software to crop, edit or modify your images to fit this square aspect ratio.

When you create a custom texture, you can also apply the texture to a material when you create or Edit a new Material.