Session 17

1. Introduction

The Measure tab in SpaceClaim contains several key analysis and evaluation tools that help you assess and verify the geometry of your model before simulation. With functions like Measure, Mass Properties, Interference, Curvature, Grid, and Dihedral, you can quickly check distances, areas, mass, volume, potential overlaps, and the quality of your surfaces. These features are essential for preparing models for meshing and CFD analysis, helping to catch design issues early.

2. Learning Objectives

This session aims to build your familiarity and skill with the Measure tab’s capabilities:

• The Measure tool reads out direct geometric data such as straight-line distances, angles, lengths, areas, and perimeters.

• Mass Properties calculates important physical properties such as total volume, surface area, mass, the center of gravity, and moments of inertia. These are vital for confirming the physical accuracy of your model, especially for CFD-ready parts and assemblies.

• The Interference tools (Volumes, Curves) help you find where solid bodies or surfaces overlap, highlighting intersection lines and shared volumes. This ensures that all geometry in your assemblies is valid, watertight, and ready for mesh generation.

• The Quality tools include Normal which checks face orientation, Curvature to identify tight radii or discontinuities, Grid to reveal surface parameterization and highlight areas with poor meshability, and Dihedral for viewing angles between adjacent faces. These checks are critical when you want smooth, well-tangent surfaces for quality mesh generation.

3. Summary

By using the SpaceClaim Measure tab, you’ll be able to extract essential geometric and physical information about your model, catch overlaps or invalid contacts with Interference detection, and assess surface quality for efficient meshing. These tools play a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and cleanliness of your geometry, directly impacting the success of CFD or any kind of simulation workflow. Building solid skills with these evaluation tools will help you diagnose potential problems and prepare your geometries for high-quality, repeatable analyses.