Surface Area iProperty

[pcrawley]

Any idea how to get "Surface Area" into an Inventor BOM?
Mass & Volume are available, but not Surface Area?

Thanks in advance.
Peter

[Jimmy_Yuan|Autodesk]

Hi Peter,

In fact, this request has been put into our working dataset as a wishlist #887954.
At present, I am afraid you have to add a custom iproperty column and input the area value from model.

Regards,
Jimmy
Autodesk Drawing Manager QA

[karin.pecovska]

Peter,



you can create a custom iproperty column and insert a formula "=<SurfaceArea>" into each cell.



Karin Pecovska (Autodesk QA)

[pcrawley]

Perfect - easy when you know how!!
Thanks Karin & Jimmy!

[Josh_Petitt]

Karin,

I'm not at my IV computer right now so this may be a dumb question, but how did you know about the SurfaceArea property? I don't remember seeing this in the iProps? I'm assuming it is in the Physical Property tab? Is there a list somewhere (in the Help maybe?) of all the properties that be used? TIA

[wayz]

Very good tip, thank you,



just keep in mind that this will give the sum of all the surfaces of the body, i.e., if you draw a glass panel and you want to know how much glass you need, this property is useless, it will give you more than double the wanted value coz it adds all the surfaces of the panel, my workaround is to make a custom column with value " volume / thickness", this would do most of the times.



Regards,

[Anonymous]

It's not in the iProps..... It is an reserved internal
variable. Good way to test this and others is to make it a custom iProperty
Name. If it won't work, then it's reserved.

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[Josh_Petitt]

"Good way to test this and others is to make it a custom iProperty Name. If it won't work, then it's reserved"




:-? I'd prefer to have a list to work from rather than go thru the entire dictionary looking for names that may or may not be reserved. Karin, does a list like this exist in the documentation?

[Anonymous]

I think it may be in this document: Program
Files/Autodesk/Inventor 2009/PSS/admapi_13_0.chm However, the sorting is not
alphabetical.

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
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[Anonymous]

Do a search in the document I recommended.
It comes up in PropertiesForDesignTracking....
--
Dennis Jeffrey,
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation
Certified Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 2008 SP2, AIP
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.8185
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[Josh_Petitt]

Got it, thanks Dennis!

[pcrawley]

Thanks Dennis - amazing what you can learn from a simple question. "The only dumb question is the one you don't ask!"

On looking through the help file you mentioned, I noticed "FlatPatternExtentsArea" - which I'd like to include in the BOM too. However, after applying the same techniques learned from SurfaceArea (and on a SM part with a flat pattern), this one just does not want to work for me. Any ideas why?

[NmbrOneZero]

We have been trying forever to get the surface area into our BOM automatically. I was able to do what you said above but it only resulted in the surface area coming in as cm^2. Is there anyway I could could get this to be ft^2 in my BOM?

Thanks

[pcrawley]

I tried - and the only solution I found was to go to Document Settings > Units and Length units to "foot" on the parts concerned. Not ideal, but it does the job.



Would love to hear if anyone has a better solution.

[NmbrOneZero]

Right now our units in documents settings are set to inch, yet the surface area shows up as cm^2. I dont see how changing the units in document settings would help anything.

[pcrawley]

Sorry - I was thinking about getting Surface area into a title-block where the formatting options are really poor.



In the Parts list on the IDW you just format the column. (Edit the parts list - RMB the "Surface area" column heading and choose "Format column".)



The only downside here is that the "Unit type" does not include anything for area - which is a real pain and should be the subject of another post - but at least you can get rid of the cm^2 !

[NmbrOneZero]

I think I know what you are getting at but I dont think that is what we are looking for. We want to keep the units in document settings as inches all the time, but display the area as ft^2 in our BOM. We were actually able to create a macro that does, we are now just fine tuning it a little. Edited by: NmbrOneZero on Feb 23, 2009 11:57 PM

[alexee]

Hi there. I have go to the custom part there. And I try to key in "=<SurfaceArea>". its nothing happen. Can you tell me how? or show me more details? I want to calculate a surface area of a cone

[sdotson]

Just an FYI, iPropWiz v5 will be able to format parameters into any units,..

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=69

[cadman777]

Karen,

In response to Dennis' comment:

Re: Surface Area iProperty 01-26-2009 06:16 AM in reply to: pcrawley

I think it may be in this document: Program
Files/Autodesk/Inventor 2009/PSS/admapi_13_0.chm However, the sorting is not
alphabetical.

Would you please direct me to the document in 2010 Suite?

I found this doc in my directory structure:

admapi_13_0.chm

But I could not the list he says is in the doc.

Can you please tell me where I can find this?

Thanx ...

[cadman777]

I think it may be in this document: Program
Files/Autodesk/Inventor 2009/PSS/admapi_13_0.chm However, the sorting is not
alphabetical.

Would you please direct me to the document in 2010 Suite?

I found this doc in my directory structure:

admapi_13_0.chm

But I could not the list he says is in the doc.

Can you please tell me where I can find this?

Thanx ...