Board foot calculation

[cparnellCDZ7D]

We use solid 3/4" oak, maple, hickory and would like to know if someone has a automated way for Inventor to calculate Board Feet. I know the calculation of Board Feet is "Length in. x Width in. x Thickness in.\144 in = Board Feet".

Hopefully something that would adjust when the part changes size. I am guessing something to work in the .ipt file and for a generated solid via Make Component.

Inventor does not have a Volume unit for BrdFt so I am not sure where to go from here.

Any thoughts?

Autodesk Inventor 2020

[JelteDeJong]

According to Wikipedia 1 BrdFt =  144 in3 Calculating volume in Inches can be done. From there it's easy to BrdFt. That can all be done in an iLogic rule. It will also put the value in a custom iProperty "VolumeBrdFt". You can set this on the event trigger "Any model parameter change". Then it will be updated all the time.

Dim volume = iProperties.Volume
Dim side1 = volume ^ (1/3)

Dim uom = ThisDoc.Document.UnitsOfMeasure
Dim sideConverted = uom.ConvertUnits(side1, 
			UnitsTypeEnum.kDefaultDisplayLengthUnits, 
			UnitsTypeEnum.kInchLengthUnits)

Dim volumeConverted = (sideConverted ^ 3) / 144
iProperties.Value("Custom", "VolumeBrdFt") = volumeConverted

[cparnellCDZ7D]

I believe I followed your directions, but It has not populated the Parameters with VolumeBrdFt. 

See screen captures.

Thank you for the reply.

[JelteDeJong · Accepted solution]

The value was written to a custom iProperty. But if you want you can write it to a user parameter like this:

Dim volume = iProperties.Volume
Dim side1 = volume ^ (1 / 3)

Dim uom = ThisDoc.Document.UnitsOfMeasure
Dim sideConverted = uom.ConvertUnits(side1,
        UnitsTypeEnum.kDefaultDisplayLengthUnits,
        UnitsTypeEnum.kInchLengthUnits)

Dim volumeConverted = (sideConverted ^ 3) / 144

Dim doc As PartDocument = ThisDoc.Document
Dim parameters = doc.ComponentDefinition.Parameters.UserParameters
Try
	Dim para = parameters.Item("VolumeBrdFt")
	para.Value = volumeConverted
Catch ex As Exception
	parameters.AddByValue("VolumeBrdFt", volumeConverted, "ul")
End Try

[cparnellCDZ7D]

Thank you for the help.

That worked.

Have a good week.