Empty Volume Calculation on an Assembly

[pongolo]

I am new to ProE (used CATIA for the most part) and I have searched through the forum but can't seem to find how to do this on an assembly composed of other assemblies.

I have a large assembly composed of sub-assemblies and it seems that the cutout component operation does not work on assemblies (it needs parts as opposed to assemblies for the operation). I have tried to export the assembly as a STEP (solids and/or surfaces) file to import back as a part but the import gets stuck at 10-15% when opening. I tried an IGES file but get a buffer error.

Is there any other way to accomplish this?

Thanks,
Freddie

 

[kenppy]

If it's a cut out operation you want to do, then it only works with parts in an assembly not with sub-assemblies; is this what you mean?

 

[pongolo]

Yes. The assembly I'm using is made of of several sub-assemblies, not parts. Is there any other way of doing the cut out operation or of calculating the empty volume via other means using the existing assembly?

Thanks,
Freddie

 

[dgs]

Have you tried a shrinkwrap part? I don't know a lot about
it, but it seems suited to what you're trying to do.

Another way would be to construct a part that matches the
outside shape of the assembly but is solid. Subtract the
total volume of all the assembly components from the volume
of that part and you'd have the volume of the empty space
inside.

 

[pongolo]

Thanks for the suggestion on using a shrinkwrap. I tried creating a merged solid shrinkwrap but get an error at the end:

Feature regeneration failed.
Regenerating 201-011000-1_SW0001 feature 9 out of 11 ...
Feature regeneration failed.
Part 201-011000-1_SW0001 has no mass. Center of gravity
is not well defined.
201-011000-1_SW0001 regeneration completed with atypical
feature or component status. Failed: 1. Child of Failed: 1.
Could not create model 201-011000-1_SW0001. Aborting.

A shrinkwrap using Surface Subset or Faceted Solid does not work for the cutout operation (it merges the 2 parts instead of cutting them out). I tried using a shrinkwrap using Merged Solid on a different part and the cutout operation worked great. The Event Manager didn't give me any useful info to figure out what the problem with the Merged Solid creation on the assembly may be. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Freddie