CATIA

Introduction

CATIA is a process-centric computer-aided design/computer-assisted manufacturing/computeraided engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) system that fully uses next generation object technologies and leading edge industry standards. Seamlessly integrated with Dassault Systemes Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, it enables users to simulate the entire range of industrial design processes from initial concept to product design, analysis, assembly, and maintenance. The CATIA product line covers mechanical and shape design, styling, product synthesis, equipment and systems engineering, NC manufacturing, analysis and simulation, and industrial plant design. In addition, CATIA Knowledgeware enables broad communities of users to easily capture and share know-how, rules, and other intellectual property (IP) assets. CATIA builds on powerful smart modeling and morphing concepts to enable the capture and reuse of process specifications and intelligence. The result is an easily scaleable, Web-enabled system that covers all user requirements within the digital extended enterprise, from the simplest design to the most complex processes. This capability allows optimization of the entire product development process while controlling change propagation. CATIA moves beyond traditional parametric or variational approaches, accelerating the design process and helping designers, engineers, and manufacturers increase their speed and productivity. CATIA has an innovative and intuitive user interface that unleashes the designer's creativity. Context-sensitive integrated workbenches provide engineers with the tools they need for the task at hand, and they are beneficial for multi-discipline integration. The workbenches have powerful keyboard-free direct object manipulators that maximize user productivity. CATIA applications are based on a hybrid modeling technology. These applications provide expanded digital product definitions, process definitions, and review functions capable of operating on projects with any degree of design complexity. CATIA has produced domainspecific applications that have addressed global digital enterprise requirements that span the areas of mock-up, manufacturing, plant, and operations. CATIA expands scalability across processes, functions, and platforms to deliver the right solution to the desktop of each team member in the product development chain. Tailored solutions meet the needs of a broad range of users, from a small supplier shop to a large multinational corporation.

Catia Use In Engineering

CATIA offers a solution to model complex and intelligent products through the systems engineering approach. It covers the requirements definition, the systems architecture, the behavior modeling and the virtual product or embedded software generation. CATIA can be customized via application programming interfaces (API). CATIA V5 & V6 can be adapted using Visual Basic and C++ programming languages via CAA (Component Application Architecture); a component object model (COM)-like interface. Although later versions of CATIA V4 implemented NURBS, V4 principally used piecewise polynomial surfaces. CATIA V4 uses a non-manifold solid engine. Catia V5 features a parametric solid/surface-based package which uses NURBS as the core surface representation and has several workbenches that provide KBE support. V5 can work with other applications, including Enovia, Smarteam, and various CAE Analysis applications. CATIA can be applied to a wide variety of industries, from aerospace and defense, automotive, and industrial equipment, to high tech, shipbuilding, consumer goods, plant design, consumer packaged goods, life sciences, architecture and construction, process power and petroleum, and services. CATIA V4, CATIA V5, Pro/ENGINEER, NX (formerly Unigraphics), and SolidWorks are the dominant systems. Aerospace The Boeing Company used CATIA V3 to develop its 777 airliner, and used CATIA V5 for the 787 series aircraft. They have employed the full range of Dassault Systemes' 3D PLM products CATIA, DELMIA, and ENOVIA LCA supplemented by Boeing developed applications. Shipbuilding Dassault Systems has begun serving shipbuilders with CATIA V5 release 8, which includes special features useful to shipbuilders. GD Electric Boat used CATIA to design the latest fast attack submarine class for the United States Navy, the Virginia class.[13] Newport News Shipbuilding also used CATIA to design the Gerald R. Ford class of supercarriers for the US Navy. Industrial equipment CATIA has a strong presence in the Industrial Equipment industry. Industrial Manufacturing machinery companies like Schuler andMetso use CATIA, as well as heavy mobile machinery and equipment companies like Claas, and also various industrial equipment product companies like Alstom Power and ABB Group.

ADVANTAGES

Software Flexibility

Using CAD software enables design changes to be made rapidly. Before CAD, a particular design change would have required a draftsperson to completely redraw the design to the new specification. CAD software allows designers to tinker with designs and make small changes on the fly. It can also be used to simulate the behavior of the design in software. For example, CAD software can be used to simulate the airflow around an engine. This allows for greater flexibility in the software design process.

Design Flexibility

Another term for CAM is rapid prototyping. Rapid prototyping allows designers to construct physical prototypes during the design process. These physical prototypes can be used to test various aspects of the design. For example, if the goal is to design a steel object, then a prototype can be made out of transparent acrylic. The transparency of the acrylic prototype allows designers to view the pattern of stresses and strains within the object. This allows for greater flexibility in the physical design and prototyping process.

DISADVANTAGES

Software Complexity

As CAD software advances, it becomes more flexible and adaptable. However, this comes at the cost of making the software more complex. This complexity makes it more difficult for first-time users to learn the software. Combined with the cost of training personnel in CAD.CAM technologies, this complexity represents another disadvantage of CAD.CAM.

Conclusion
CATIA is turning out to be the design tool preferred by most organizations in the automobile, aerospace, and manufacturing industries. Windows is becoming more popular in the engineering environment as the platform for all engineering tools, including CATIA. If you have decided to run CATIA on Windows, it is important to evaluate all the deployment options. By selecting the most appropriate option for your needs, you can implement a scalable, stable, and highly available design system with the minimum administrative overhead. Where CATIA should be installed is one of the first questions to be considered. Traditionally, local installation on all workstations has been considered to provide the best performance and least network traffic. However, the Appendix to this document shows that, with Offline Folders and DFS, a code server can perform as well as a local installation in these respects. Code serving of the CATIA application not only reduces the overhead for packaging, deployment, and distribution, but also almost eliminates administration of CATIA on workstations. With this type of installation, only OLE records, shortcuts, fonts, and two lines in the etc\services files are deployed locally on workstations. This solution, which is similar to many UNIX CATIA systems, avoids heavy local installations. If you have a large number of workstations in your system, you will appreciate automated installation of CATIA on workstations, especially with local installation. There are many packaging and deployment tools available to help with this. The one you choose will depend on budget, workstation numbers, whether you have already rolled out Windows, and other factors. When migrating to Windows from an existing UNIX-based CATIA setup, you must ensure that existing data is migrated smoothly and that none is lost or made unusable. Furthermore, if you have added to CATIA with your own custom code, you will be keen to retain this, without major rewriting, because of the investment it represents. Finally, any UNIX to Windows migration will require these two operating systems to interoperate, whether it is for the purposes of issuing commands, ensuring security, or sharing files. These are the principal areas your migration project will concentrate on. If you ensure that each of them is fully planned for and thoroughly thought out, your project should run smoothly with few headaches. You will find details of tests carried out on CATIA to determine its performance and scalability on Windows in the Appendix. Also included are recommendations for and the limitations of each setup.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATIA

http://web.archive.org/web/20090321124651/http://www.boeing.com/commercial/777family/pf/ pf_computing.html

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/6975.wss