Calculate weight from volume and density

[Bengt Nilsson]

Hi all,

 

Is it possible to automatically calculate the weight of an object in Vectorworks, by its volume and density?

Either by internal function or external script?

Ideally it should be accessible as a parameter in the drawing title block, and be presented as title block data.

 

Often, the total weight of a design is asked for, and it is a pain to do this calculation manually in e.g. excel for all the parts.

 

BN

[michaelk]

I think it is theoretically possible.  It can certainly be displayed in a worksheet, so it should  be possible to get that data where you ultimately need it to go.

 

 

 

VolumeDensityWeight.vwx

[Pat Stanford]

I think this is a large portion of what the new "Materials" addition to VW2021 is about. It allows you to specify the material that an object is made of and the data about that object. One of the pieces of data is the density of the object. So if you draw a beam and make its materials Steel, then you can extract the volume and density to get the weight. Change the material to Concete and the density automatically changes and so does the calculated weight.

 

I know what you are looking for for details to have the material specified in the title block, but that is going to be hard to accomplish. I think you will have better luck using a worksheet that you format to look like the title block and add separately.

[Bengt Nilsson]

8 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

I think this is a large portion of what the new "Materials" addition to VW2021 is about. It allows you to specify the material that an object is made of and the data about that object. One of the pieces of data is the density of the object. So if you draw a beam and make its materials Steel, then you can extract the volume and density to get the weight. Change the material to Concete and the density automatically changes and so does the calculated weight.

 

I know what you are looking for for details to have the material specified in the title block, but that is going to be hard to accomplish. I think you will have better luck using a worksheet that you format to look like the title block and add separately.

 

Thanks, I will try to find out about "Materials" in 2021.

I do not intend to specify the material in the title block, this spec should belong to the design object.

I could actually manually enter the weight in the title block, if only I could find a way to calculate the weight of the object from volume and density.

The volume and weight of object composed of complex solid subtractions is sometimes not so easy to calculate, so a function would be handy if it existed.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Bengt Nilsson

[Bas Vellekoop]

The new material resource is probably the way to go in combination with worksheets.

 

In the past for product design i used it quite allot as can be seen in the attached picture. Then i used symbols and classes to get the right objects in the worksheet. This example is a sofa. But i used ut for the calculation of the weight of chandelier as well. It's good to know if the electric cord wil hold it 🙂

 

[Bengt Nilsson]

2 hours ago, Bas Vellekoop said:

The new material resource is probably the way to go in combination with worksheets.

 

In the past for product design i used it quite allot as can be seen in the attached picture. Then i used symbols and classes to get the right objects in the worksheet. This example is a sofa. But i used ut for the calculation of the weight of chandelier as well. It's good to know if the electric cord wil hold it 🙂

 

 

Ok, it seems I need to study worksheets carefully, I have never used it.

Could you please share an example of what you did above? it looks like it is exactly what I need.