Hi all
I am new to this forum so go easy on me !!
I am trying to get surface area into the parts list / material list for the guys building the BOM for our products.
I can get the mass, volume etc but no surface area. I can retrieve it via text and use "physical properties - model" and by selecting the correct part in the drop down box, select individual parts from the assembly, all be it in mm2 ! But this is messy and time consuming.
As you can retrieve other physical properties surly a surface area is possible??
Is there a way to get it into the BOM then retrieve it from there?
I can't believe that there is not a simple solution as I am sure people need to cost sheet material !
I know you can get surface area extents from sheet metal is this possible in a std part? As this would be better than nothing.
Thanks
In your dwg/idw, go to manage>styles & standards>styles & standards editor
Expand parts list, click parts list standard of your choice, got to column chooser and add volume
Do this in your template if you always need it
Thanks for the reply.
I have done as you suggested and this gives me the volume only. Unless you know of away to tweak this?
I require the square meters of the main face, not meters cubed. This way it doesn't mater what sheet thickness is used I can just extract the area of board we will need for that job. Basically I want to extract the surface area of a face.
Currently I am using sheet metal for a flat board. I then create a flat pattern of the flat board this way I get a surface area extents. I just wondered if there was a way to get a true surface area like using the measure tool and selecting a face.
The area in physical tab in the parts iproperties gives you an area of all faces but I just want the main one.
Probably being too fussy
Thanks again
Sorry, totally mis-read your question.
I don't see a way, you could add a text manually that used the physical property.
At least it would update with the part
Hi! If you are talking about the extent area for sheet metal part particularly, please take a look at the following thread. Look for the reply at the bottom and there is the workflow to add extents to partslist.
Let me know if more information is needed.
Thanks!
Thanks again for the input and the link it has a good tip with the cm at the end I didn't know about.
The solution in the link is working the area out similar to the extents available in text in a DWG, in effect measuring a rectangular box around the flat pattern.
The sheet metal extents is as near as I am going to get as an inbuilt functionality it seems, or measure it using the measure tool and enter it as text as suggested.
The difficulty is as we use nesting software to make the most of a sheet of material and we cut many weird and wonderful shapes. Imagine a crescent moon type shape, Inventor would return a massive extents area where as in reality you can nest lots of other parts inside that extent. I know Inventor isn't nesting software, it would just be quicker for me to give a surface area to the guys creating the BOM and costing, other than it going to the machine shop for them to report back the true surface area.
Sheet metal extents in some of our applications are just a good guide at best.
Cheers guys