Volume of Parts 1

[drhine]

Is there a quick, acurate and easy way to find the volume of a part? I have a complex faceted tank that I need to get the Volume of... How can I retrieve this information from SW?

 

[TheTick]

If your model is solid, simply go to "Tools-->Mass Properties", or hit the blue scale icon on the "Tools" toolbar.

On justice and on friendship, there is no price, but there are established credit limits.

 

[drhine]

Nope it is not solid, I understand what you are saying. But I made this tank from sheet metal, so now I would like for SW to tell me what the internal volume of this tank is. I already know the volume, I just wanted to know if SW could tell me easily.
I guess I could go in and draw a representation of the liquid and use the information from that. But why should we have to do that to get the information?

 

[SBaugh]

Try this (Putting the liquid inside the tank)

1) Place your tank into an assembly
2) Make a large enough solid to represent the liquid. NOTE: Must be larger than the tank itself.
3) Place the liquid into the assembly and mate it so that it in compasses the tank. If the liquid only goes to a certain level on the tank make the it so.
4) Edit the Liquid in the Assembly and click on Cavity in your Mold toolbar.
5) Click on the tank in the FM and click OK
6) Select the bodies you want to keep (which will be the tank)

You now have liquid inside your tank. and that part can be maesued with Mass properties.

I hope that helps,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[DetroitPickles]

drhine,

I would try doing as Scott suggested, as he is pretty sharp about some of these things.

As for why you have to something like this to get a volume of something that doesn't exist, is well, because it doesn't exist. I know you want SW to tell you the volume of what the shape would hold, but your probably not going to get it. A total "boundry" volume of the part in whatever shape it is would be nice, but that would also be hard to calculate if you have curves and drafts and lofts, etc.

I would MUCH rather SW concentrate on improving other things (and fixing some things), like the drawing package, than creating a button that calculates the area or volume of something that isn't really there...


Mr. Pickles

 

[drhine]

I agree Mr. Pickles,

I would rather have other things improved as well, and at the top of thst list would be the drawing package. I was just curiousas to how complicated it would be to do this, and you all satisfied my curiousity. I will try what Scott suggested and see how it works out.

Thank you all,

DRHINE

 

[SBaugh]

I suppose that would be possible, but I wouldn't highly suggest it. Unless you understood in-contexting well.

You would have to in-context sketchs, planes or features to the volumed part. I'm afraid you would start having circular references. When that starts happening your trouble because they can be hard to figure out which external reference or multiple references is causing the problem.

The Volumed part already has an incontexted relationship to the main part (like the 2 liter bottle). So by in-contexting, the incontext model already...you will probably get circular references before it's all over.

Good Luck!

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help