How to calculate the external surface area of a complex structure?

Question:
How can I calculate the external surface area of the structure that needs to be painted?

Answer:
One of the solutions is to add “Surface Treatment” to all of the surfaces whose surface area you want to calculate.

Example:
This example shows how to get the external surface area, or the surface area that will be painted, of a complex steel column.

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• Surface treatment must be added to the surfaces/areas that need to be calculated

Here are is an article on how to do this:

• Adding surface treatment to parts

When surface treatment is added to the external surfaces of the column, it looks like this:

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• If there are some surfaces that need to be partly painted, or there are some areas that need to be subtracted from the added surface treatment, the “UP-Unpainted” surface treatment must be added to that area.

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The image shows a surface treatment of a part face with subtracted "UP-Unpainted" surface treatment.

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• As it is possible to get the volume and thickness of the added surface treatment, the surface area can be easily calculated. There is a simple template added to this article to show some basic principles on how to calculate that.
  In this template, it is set that surface treatment with name “UP-Unpainted” is not printed in the report.

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