The minimum thickness plug-in finds the location on the part with the minimum wall thickness.
To use the plug-in follow these steps:
- Hit the Select button to begin the selection process (the button changes to Stop selection)
- If Parts is selected, then the picking is at the part level.
- If Surfaces is selected, then the picking is at the surface level. In this mode the calculation is done between the surfaces selected and all surfaces (including the selected ones), so there is no need to select both sides of where you think the minimum thickness is.
- Hit the Stop selection button
- Hit the Compute button
- A markup with the measurement will be created on the part
Parameters
The draft angle and modeling tolerance help define what qualifies as a minimum thickness measurement.
Draft angle - This parameter compensates for parts where opposite faces are not parallel. If set to 0.0, then the two surfaces at the point of measurement must be parallel. So if you are doing cast or plastic type injected parts, then a non zero value would be better. For example if the part was designed with a draft angle of 4 or 5 degrees, then setting this to 5 or 6 degrees would be appropriate.
Modeling tolerance - Many parts will have small modeling error. For example often times small parts of a fillet will have poor tessellation and the thickness measurement will be based on this and not the true minimum thickness area. If you do a calculation and you definitely know it is not correct, then increasing this value and performing the measurement again will often correct the problem. Some trial and error might be required until you get the expected results.
 | Be Careful If the measurement finds the minimum thickness where you don't expect it, try increasing the modeling tolerance. |