Volume body from solid structure
Volume body from solid structure
(OP)
Hi guys,
My part consists of an airbox for automotive applications and I need to get the air volume inside it which, of course, is not present as body. Does anyone know a simple way to obtain such an air volume as a body (starting from the airbox)?
I have attached an image of the airbox structure.
My part consists of an airbox for automotive applications and I need to get the air volume inside it which, of course, is not present as body. Does anyone know a simple way to obtain such an air volume as a body (starting from the airbox)?
I have attached an image of the airbox structure.





RE: Volume body from solid structure
Inserts \ Combine \ Subtract
From there, you can choose either to keep the tool, the target, or both. The resulting solid will not be a terribly clean looking object as there appears to be a decent amount of ribbing and other geometries that will affect it. However, somewhere in the center of that mass will be the inside volume of the white box which you can then do the following to measure.
Analysis \ Measure Body
Hope that works for you or that it gives you a starting point to move forward with.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
Set to 'Region of Faces' then you can extract a shell of the interior by selecting a seed face and then a face of the opening as the boundary face.
This will create a sheet body. Cap the hole with a planar surface for example, sew that to the shell and you'll have solid as long there are no other holes.
Anthony Galante

Senior Support Engineer
NX3 to NX10 with almost every MR (21versions)
RE: Volume body from solid structure
You can with the same feature analyse " what happens if i pour 5.5 liters of fluid into this cavity". and then see where the level goes.
Regards,
Tomas
RE: Volume body from solid structure
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
Excuse me, but maybe I was not able to well explain my real intent. I do not need to just measure the empty volume inside the airbox, but I need to "create" such a volume.
First, I brutally closed the structure by means of the extrusions. Then I tried, as suggested by mjjmecheng, to make a boolean operation with a cube which encolses my airbox structure, but, at this point, I do not know how to move on. Do you have any tips?
I am running version 9 of NX.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
RE: Volume body from solid structure
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
RE: Volume body from solid structure
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
Anyway I did not solve my problem due to an error message which appears when I try to delete the faces.
I have attached a video in which I try to execute the same commands as you did with your part. What do you think is wrong with my procedure?
RE: Volume body from solid structure
Export -> Heal Geometry...
...which will created a copy of your part file but with the model optimized and fixed-up by removing any bad or problematic topology. Then I would try the 'Delete Face' operation again.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
It seems from the video that your model might have more "openings" between the "volume" and the outer shell ?
-If so you must select these openings too, else NX will attempt delete all faces, both interior and exterior.
When selecting the faces to delete, the first pick selects a "region start" from where NX searches for adjacent faces, the next picks selects "Boundary faces" where the searching shall stop, and by this isolate the inner faces from the outer. NX will then use the "last face before the boundary" to try cap the volume. ( It helps if this "last face before" is a planar face and not a complex shape. If so , try cut off or trim or replace to make it planar.)
Another tip, ( I don't know if this will do anything different than the Heal Geometry), under the synchronous ... there is a Optimize Face feature that have made miracles on imported ( other cad systems) data for me.
Regards,
Tomas
RE: Volume body from solid structure
I will let you know if I solve, but, if you have some other tips, please share them with me.
RE: Volume body from solid structure
finally I solved my problem extracting each single volume from each part and then merging all the volumes together.
Thank you very much for the help!