Calculating the Surface Area of a Mass Element

[gilbert.garcia]

Does anyone have any information as to how to do this? I've created a Property Set Definition to extract volume information of a mass element, but now I would like to extract surface area data but when I "write" a formula definition where I divide the width by the volume, it doesn't give me the result, it merely copies the formula information.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

[dkoch]

I am not certain that dividing the volume by the width would give you total surface area as a result, but my guess at why you are getting the entire formula back is that your formula is referencing formatted properties and trying to do math with them.

For example, if your Volume property has a suffix added by the Property Data Format [PDF] assigned to it, and your width is in imperial architectural units, you are asking the formula to divide two strings:

300.23 CF / 3'-4 1/4"

This will result in the formula failing, and returning the entire formula, with values substituted for the referenced properties.

Set up an unformatted version of the automatic properties - read more about that here and here - and use the unformatted values to do the math.

[gilbert.garcia]

Excellent. Thanks for the response.