Getting square footage of cylinder surface or other solids

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? 

Comments

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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!

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