Following the multibody ability, and the fact that a description can be added to a material created (To a maximum 80 characters I believe) it makes sense that you could call up this information for drawings and notes. This is particularly important when creating large assembly drawings where multiple labels/notes are needed to illustrate materials and parts within an in assembly drawing.
This would dramatically reduce the time it takes to label up materials, and allows for single point changes to the .mtl file to update all associated drawings. It also removes the risk of miss labelling information.
An example might be something along the lines of:
"&PTC_ASSIGNED_MATERIAL:att_body" - So if the item changes to a different material - Say 304 SS to 316 SS, or even Mild Steel Galv, the material description could be updated in the note.
The note
allows for more information than simply the material type. It could say:
"Mild Steel hot dip galvanized, degreased and fettled back to remove any imperfections."
or
"Mild steel, galvanized. Please refer to engineers calcs. for strength and finish spec."
This would make labelling/noting drawings a 2 click process with the appropriate UDF being set up. This would be a huge time saver for if you have a list of your own materials that you use within the modelling process. It also ensures that any update to the 'master model' percolates through to the notes/labels.
