Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
(OP)
Greetings all,
I am using a Solidworks assembly that contains some lofted and rotated parts. Is there a way to project an outline of the assembly onto an offset plane and calculate the projected frontal area? A similar question would be for an umbrella. Is there a way to find the frontal area of the umbrella from an observers plane?
Thanks for the help.
I am using a Solidworks assembly that contains some lofted and rotated parts. Is there a way to project an outline of the assembly onto an offset plane and calculate the projected frontal area? A similar question would be for an umbrella. Is there a way to find the frontal area of the umbrella from an observers plane?
Thanks for the help.






RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
Ray Reynolds
Senior Designer
Read: FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
You could save some time by selecting Faces instead of Edges.
Ray Reynolds
Senior Designer
Read: FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
If you know the furthest feature back from the "front", you could create a Section View (View : Display : Section View) along a parallel plane to the "front". Then select (click) the resulting "cut face", and get the Section Properties (Tools : Section Properties). The area will be listed of the face. If there are more than one flat faces, perhaps you have to add them up?
Ohh, well...
Mr. Pickles
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
Brian Lewis
The Aerospace Corporation
http://www.aero.org/
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
I did figure out that you can use the "Selection Filter". Set it to "Edges" and draw a box around your whole part. Then you could Control-Click on the edges you DON'T want included. Then do the Section Properties. But in your "cut a bowl in half" example, that isn't gonna work either...
It past my nap time...Can you make a drawing view of the face you want, and save it as a DXF and use AutoCAD's Area command on it? Oh my golly, did I use the dirty "A" word in here. Shoot me now folks, I'm a losing it...
Mr. Pickles
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
IHTH,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.3dmca.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
Make a single-view temporary drawing of the part, orienting the view to the plane you wish to project. Make sure this view is scaled 1:1. Export the drawing as *.dwg or *.dxf. Reimport into a SW part file, and you will have a 2D sketch of your projection.
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly
I tried selecting the loop to offset it and SW gives me an error that says Convert Entities Operation Failed.
I found another workaround in that if I created a block part the same height and width as my hollow part and used my part to create a cavity, the face that was left along with the area from a section view would give me the total area. I was just hoping to find a command that I could automate through VB into Excel rather than having to use these workarounds.
Thanks for the ideas though.
Brian Lewis
The Aerospace Corporation
http://www.aero.org/
RE: Projected Frontal Area from Assembly