The transparent thermoplastic safety glasses, riot shields, motorcycle helmet face shields, and Apple's iPhone 5C are made of. About 200 times more impact-resistant than glass at the same thickness, and clear enough that you can use it as window glazing. Scratches more easily than acrylic — the trade for the impact resistance.
Amorphous thermoplastic, repeating bisphenol-A carbonate ester. Tg ~150 °C. Density 1.20 g/cm³. Tensile strength 65 MPa, Charpy notched impact 800–1000 J/m (versus 30 J/m for PMMA). Refractive index 1.586. Solvent-attacks readily by aromatic and chlorinated hydrocarbons. Stress-cracks in contact with many cleaning agents — the design constraint.
Plastics are the most recent group of materials in building history. Their development from natural raw materials such as rubber started in the mid-19th century, but their use in architecture did not reach its provisional peak until the futuristic designs of the 1960s. Plastics had a poor reputation until the late 1980s because of technical faults in the material, but this has now largely been overcome.
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere transparent finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: transparent albedo #c8d8e0 metallic 0.00 roughness 0.05 ior 1.50 transmission 1.00 clearcoat 0.00 sheen 0.00 anisotropic 0.00 thickness 1.00 attenuation_distance 0.60
{
"albedo": "#c8d8e0",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.05,
"ior": 1.5,
"transmission": 1.0,
"clearcoat": 0.0,
"sheen": 0.0,
"anisotropic": 0.0,
"thickness": 1.0,
"attenuation_distance": 0.6
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Polycarbonate (PC) · finish: transparent
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_polycarbonate_pc")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.5776, 0.6867, 0.7454, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.050
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value = 1.500
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 1.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.000
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Polycarbonate (PC) · finish: transparent
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_polycarbonate_pc", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (200, 216, 224)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.050)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.500)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 1.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "Polycarbonate (PC) \u00b7 finish: transparent",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.5776,
"g": 0.6867,
"b": 0.7454
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.05,
"ior": 1.5,
"opacity": 0.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.0,
"_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}{
"asset": {
"version": "2.0",
"generator": "ForMatter"
},
"materials": [
{
"name": "mat_polycarbonate_pc",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.5776,
0.6867,
0.7454,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.05
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_transmission": {
"transmissionFactor": 1.0
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Polycarbonate (PC) · finish: transparent
def Material "mat_polycarbonate_pc" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_polycarbonate_pc/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.5776, 0.6867, 0.7454)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.050
float inputs:ior = 1.500
float inputs:opacity = 0.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.000
token outputs:surface
}
}
Tougher than PMMA, harder to finish. Polycarbonate resists impact but the cut surface is hazy until polished or flame-treated (flame-polish risk: PC chars before it polishes — practice on scrap). Use the swarf 'outline' op with the 1/4 endmill at moderate feeds; finish with diamond polish or solvent vapor for transparency.
Onsrud Cutter plastic feeds & speeds; SABIC Lexan technical guide; Covestro Makrolon machining recommendations.
→ try this material in swarfSPI / PLASTICS recycling guide; SABIC Lexan technical literature; Covestro Makrolon datasheets.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, with cost-over-volume curves, trade-off profiles, equipment-tier filters, and second-life paths layered onto the data so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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