Need iLogic help getting MassProperties

[karthur1]

I want to find the "exposed" surface area of my assembly.  Doing some searching, it seems that the "AssemblyDocument.ComponentDefinition.MassProperties.Area" will give the total area of the assembly. ( I am not sure if this is just the sum of all the parts or if this is actually the exposed surfaces.)

I am wanting to write this to a variable using iLogic and then print it to the screen just so I can tell if its what I want or not.  Having trouble doing that.

Here is the code I have so far.  There is a problem on line 10 (Reference to a non-shared member requires an object reference).  I can't figure out what I am doing wrong, but it is probably really simple for someone that knows squat about iLogic.

'Dim oAsmDoc As AssemblyDocument
'oAsmDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

'current document
doc = ThisDoc.Document
'unit manager of the document
oUOM = doc.UnitsOfMeasure
'get the value of Area
'surfaceArea = iProperties.Area
surfaceArea = AssemblyDocument.ComponentDefinition.MassProperties.Area
'round the value with 4 valid numbers (optional)
surfaceArea = Round(surfaceArea, 4)
'convert the value to a string with the unit of the document
surfaceArea = surfaceArea.ToString() + " " + oUOM.GetStringFromType(oUOM.LengthUnits) + "^2"
'update the custom property "Area" we created
'iProperties.Value("Custom", "Area") = surfaceArea
MessageBox.Show("Total Surface Area in SQ IN = " &surfaceArea,"Exterior Surface Area")

Any help greatly appreciated.

Kirk

[MechMachineMan]

Things to consider: - Values pulled from Inventor are always database units, so care and often unit conversions are required to work with values in the unit you want.

- VBA and VB.net provide access to methods and properties through OBJECTS. ie; [OBJECT].Method or [OBJECT].Property

- Objects are only accessed in very few ways:

          - Assigning an object to another variable object; ie; oAsmDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

          - PreExisting Objects ie; VBA.Len()

          - New Objects ie; oInvApp = CreateObject("Inventor.Application")

- iLogic 'bastardizes' this in a way by providing many objects without having to think where they come from; ie; iProperties("Project", "Description") is actually a short version for saying [ApplicationObject].[Document Object].PropertySets("Design Tracking Properties")("Description").Value

- What this comes down to is that you should always know exactly what object you are wanting to point to/what object is returned whenever you see the ".".

- Why it didnt work for you - What specific object is just "AssemblyDocument" supposed to refer to? As you see in the first line, AssemblyDocument is actually a type and doesn't point to a specific object; just what kind of object it is. However, in the step below, ThisApplication is a pre-existing object that refers to the instance of the Inventor Application the rule is run in, which is why we can call it.

- In your snippet, you called Round() which is actually a short version of VBA.Round(). We don't need to specify VBA because it is the default object assigned to a method/property without the object indicated.

SyntaxEditor Code Snippet

Dim oAsmDoc As AssemblyDocument 
oAsmDoc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

'unit manager of the document
oUOM = oAsmDoc.UnitsOfMeasure

surfaceArea = oAsmDoc.ComponentDefinition.MassProperties.Area
MsgBox(oUOM.ConvertUnits(surfaceArea, "cm^2", "in^2") & " in^2") 

[karthur1]

Thanks for helping with the code.  However, that does not report what I was hoping.  There might not be a way to do this.

Take the assembly shown below.

This block measures 12in x 12in x 4.5in thick.  For the exposed surface area, it calculates to be 504in^2.  (144 front face, 144 back face, 54 on each edge face).  In the inventor iproperties it reports 1080 in^2 for the area.  This is the total area of each of the individual pieces (360in^2 x 3 pieces).

Is there a way to get the exposed surface area?

Thanks,

Kirk

[SašoPrijatelj]

As far as I know there is no way to directly get exposed area.

But in this case you can simply get it if you create derived component and measure its total area.

[karthur1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

As far as I know there is no way to directly get exposed area.

But in this case you can simply get it if you create derived component and measure its total area.

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I am aware of that, but I am trying to automate the process.  My ultimate goal is to have the exposed area shown on an idw

Thanks