Getting square footage of cylinder surface or other solids

Tim Neumann

Is there a way to coax Bricscad (V15 Platinum) into calculating square footage of the outside surface of a cylinder. I know there is a mass properties command but not sure how to use it for this application. Anyone have any ideas? 

Roy Klein Gebbinck

I am going to assume that you are (still) able to calculate the surface area of a cylinder manually...
For more complex solids: open the Properties Bar and expand the Mass node.

Richard Webb

But the mass properties don't calculate just the outer sheath, the bounding disks on either end are also included. It's an elementary calculation for a cylinder, of course (I was a math major back before they'd invented numbers greater than 42 ;-) but not so much for, say, a complex loft. I can see where it could come in handy for individual faces.

Knut Hohenberg

I think it would indeed be an important feature to be able to list properties of single surfaces for quick quantity take-off, e.g. look at what Yorik van Havre has implemented in FreeCAD:
http://freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Arch_Survey

Hans De Backer

As it happens, we are currently working on this...
The properties bar is being extended to also show properties of selected SUBentities, like edges and faces.
...and it will become possible to show a selection of properties at the cursor location by hovering the Quad over entities or subentities.
This is expected to become available begin of next year.

Tim Neumann

By accident found out I could use surfaces instead of solids. Created a cylinder surface then use area with sub option entities. The application this is used for is figuring square footage on a pressure vessel (tank) - which from that we calculate how much paint is needed for coverage. I know this is easy enough thru simple math but the figuring square footage of a vessel head surface is a pain, so popping them as surfaces is easier - again using area command but sub options add then pick entities. Thanks to all for the comments!