Frontal Area

The frontal area report calculates the combined projected area of all parts in the report onto a user-specified plane.

A rasterization technique is used to first generate a rectangular grid in memory of resolution 4096 x 4096 that bounds the projected parts on the plane. Grid locations that contain any of the projected geometry are counted as active; grid locations containing no projected geometry are inactive. The frontal area is then taken as the product of the sum of active grid locations and the area of a single grid location. This computed area has a maximum relative error given by the number of grid locations around the perimeter divided by the number of grid locations inside.

You can link this report to a local coordinate system and thus simplify your direction calculation by changing the frame of reference. This can be useful if, for example, you are modeling a certain part that is oriented differently from standard (laboratory) coordinates.

To use a local coordinate system in a report, first add it to the simulation. Then select the node of the report and choose that coordinate system from the drop-down list of the Coordinate System property.

Note

A region does not have a discretization for all representations, so depending on which representation you choose, the region may or may not contribute to the computed area. For consistent results across all representations, it is recommended that you select parts other than a region for this report.

Frontal Area Report Properties


Coordinate System	Specifies the coordinate system in which the Normal and View Up vectors are defined.
Normal	Specifies the normal vector for the plane from which the projection is calculated.
View Up	Used to define the plane that the geometry is projected onto. The cross product of the Normal and the View Up vectors defines the third leg of an orthonormal basis that is used to define the transformation matrix to set up the geometry. The projection plane is defined by the View Up vector and the Normal x View Up vector. You are advised to set the View Up vector normal to the Normalvector.
Parts	A list of parts that is used as the source for this report. Opens the in-place part selector for editing. The (property customizer) button activates a modeless version of the selector dialog (it lets you interact with other portions of the workspace).
Units	Units that are used for specifying the quantity.