Does anyone know hot to export a fully parametric file into CATIA

There are some translators, but I don't believe any of them will rebuild a Catia history, and even if they do, I wouldn't bet my job on it working well.

This is the Holy Grail of CAD interoperability. It sounds like a rebuild in Catia to me.

Good luck,

Matt

haulin,

But with "NO" history. The kernal only deals with topology, and their definitions. Methods for creating features are propriatery with all modelers. This is what makes feature/history translation difficult.

Regards

Mark

Thank you. "Methods for defining / creating topology" might be a little more precise?

Curiosity question: There are a few very pricey (a seat of Catia would be less expensive) feature translators being advertised here and there. (I was thinking that one or two support Solidworks?) Has anyone had any exposure, real world experience, etc. with them? I wonder if one can get a list of supported feature types; e.g. what source system features will be translated to what target system features?

You would think there would be a simple one click translator with Catia and SWX both coming from the same stable wouldn't you?

I'm sure it would give DS more selling flexibilty - you know buy X seats of Catia for the Big boys and Y seats of SWX for the rest.

I think thats what happens with UG ans Solid Edge isn't it??

Kev

Jeff Howard wrote:

Is that true or is the history stored in the native file database, readable, possibly re-creatable, ...?

I don't believe it's a bi-directional (or even unidirectional) feature - enabled interoperability. I've gathered (no first hand experience) that there is some ability to read various "attributes" in addition to the topology. It would be interesting to know how extensive it is or is intended to be in the future.

I believe the only way that you could get the sort of thing you are envisioning is if one system is simply a subset of a more extensive system; e.g. all SW or SE feature creation routines, database structures, etc. are available in Catia or UG. Don't know, just speculation. It's kind of interesting to speculate on; all three of the "high end" systems have a "little brother" (though PTC's doesn't have much of a following at present) ...

If you are doing work for clients that use Catia and they require you to give them parametric Catia files, then they should either:

1. Lend you a seat of Catia or
2. Pay you more for you to justify buying Catia yourself. You may be able to use it to open up a lot more new business.

MM wrote:

I will call them tomorrow to confirm...it's been a while since I did a walk through with their application's engineer. I looked at the video again and I did not see the part history specifically, only the assembly tree. Sorry.

BTW, Dassault is an owner of ImpactXoft.

That's actually the case for all of them; independantly developed aquisitions.

UGS is pushing the interop angle. Did find an article on their site that describes some of the aspects; no "feature recognition", associative entity referencing (SE extrude to NX face, NX face changes, SE extrusion updates type stuff), a few more odds and ends (just did a quick scan thru the article). No idea where it's going, but there are interesting possibilities that come to mind.

Haulin,

Well that's a first. The programs must share more than just the kernal then. One would almost have to be a subset of the other.

Regards

Mark

Mark, You are right, it is much more than just sharing the kernel, I never really thought of it that way. Since Dassault is a part owner of ImpactXoft, it wouldn't surprise me if DS gave IX a major portion of their Catia program. It seems that IX merely added a few extra modeling functions and took out others.

MM wrote:

"You can share model updates that encapsulate design behaviors with interested project participants who can then merge the updates into their working model without recreating design rules and behaviors."

... make it sound like native features are irrelevant to the process (ala SE NX, Pro/D Pro/E)?

T'would be interesting to hear from someone that's used it in conjunction with Catia.

(All I saw re price were indications of a Think3-ish rental scheme?)

TRy to ask on