I was wondering if anyone has a method or a macro that can further evaluate interferences to distinguish between the following cases:

1) Two parts in an assembly that have a small overlap over a large surface area (i.e., small depth + large surface area -> relatively large intersection volume)

2) Two parts in an assembly with one part completely protruded thru the second part through a 'small' cross-section area and 'small' thickness.

Unfortunately, the interference detection tool is not as useful here since the arguably worst case has a much smaller volume. As the interference detection results are being reviewed, it may be easy to overlook the problem due to the small volume.

For instance if a 1" width sheet metal piece of 0.05" thickness protrudes completely thru a second 0.05" thick part, the intersecting volume would only be about 0.0025 in^3. However, if two parts overlap to a depth of 1/8 of the metal thickness (0.05/8) with a cross section area of 6" x 3" (or 18"), the resulting intersecting volume could be about 0.1125 in^3. Ideally, neither of the interferences would be present in an assembly, but the case where one part completely protrudes thru another is a worse result than a potential 'tight' fit.

Any ideas? If there is a crude way to determine the average depth of the intersection, this could provide an indicator of two parts completely intersecting each other. Of course, there might be a more direct way.

I appreciate any comments! Anybody else run into a similar need? I'm basically looking for a more sophisticated interference detector. I found a macro that allows me to export interference detection results to excel where I can sort. However, additional parameters that indicate the nature of the intersection would be useful.

Thanks,

Richard