Cho, Joonmyun 18-10-27

Summary of CATIA Functionalities

(Geometric Modeling)

Part Design

Terminology

General Process

Part Management

Assembly Design

Terminology

General Process

Generative Drafting

Part Design

Terminology

Part

A part is a combination of one or more features, and bodies.

Feature

Features are components based on sketches(sketch based) or on existing features(dress-up and transformation)

They can also be generated from surface(surface based)

Body

A body is a set of features that can be assembled to a part through boolean operations(assemble, remove, …)

Profile

A profile is a series of adjacent planar geometric elements such as points, lines, and curves.

Profiles are used to extrude sketch-based features

General Process

Sketching a profile means:

  • sketching free-hand or pre-defined profiles
  • dimensioning profiles
  • constraining position of and relations between elements of the profile

Creating sketch-based features means:

  • extruding existing profiles to create pads (& shafts)
  • create pockets (from profiles) and holes on existing pads
  • limiting features by specifying dimensions or using other features(associativity) with a view to later design changes

Dressing-up means complementing 3D parts by:

  • defining draft angles
  • filleting and chamfering edges and corners
  • patterning features
  • shelling the part

Modifying 3D parts means:

  • modifying a profile shape or location
  • reordering features in the tree according to design intent
  • modifying feature parameters and deleting elements

Constraining a Profile

Geometric Constraints

A Geometric Constraint is a specification of how two geometric elements are related to one another; are the elements coincident (located at the same place), are they concentric, tangent, perpendicular or parallel to one another?

Dimensional Constraints

A Dimensional Constraints, one type of Geometric Constraint, specifies the distance between two elements. This distance can be specified as a linear distance, an angular distance, or a radial distance depending on the type of geometric elements involved.

Part Management

You will learn part management tools that you will need to design complex parts and integrate these parts into a Multi-model Environment

  • Analyzing Parts and Elements
  • Cut, Paste, Delete, Isolate, Break
  • Inserting & Managing Bodies
  • Handling Parts in a Multimodel Environment

Analyzing Parts and Elements

  • Geometric analysis
  • Analysis of Parent-children relationship

Cut/Copy then Paste

Replace(Cut) or copies(Copy) the contents into a different selected point in the Product Structure. The action is interpreted by the system in a context sensitive manner

Inserting & Managing Bodies

The concept of working within an independent “Body” and then having the ability to add, remove, or intersect this body with our “Master” part body gives us this added modeling flexibility

Handling parts in a Multimodel Environment

Ways to use Multi-model links to help propagate design change.

Assembly Design

  • Assembling Components
  • Positioning Components Using Constraints
  • Analyzing Assembly
  • Editing Parts in an Assembly
  • Working with Components
  • Creating and Using Scenes

Terminology

Assembly or Product

An Assembly or Product is a collection of components and constraints that position the components

Assembly documents have the file extension CATProduct.

Component

A component can be a part or another assembly (inside an assembly it is called a sub-assembly).

Parts and assemblies have a Part Number. All instances of a part or assembly have the same Part Number. Each instance can have its own instance Name that identifies the instance.

Active Item

The active item is the item currently being edited. Your make it active by double-clicking on it. Selected items are highlighted.

General Process

Create a new Assembly or Open an Existing One

  • Creating a new assembly document
  • Adding product properties
  • Adding components
  • Assigning component properties
  • Saving an assembly document

Add, Delete and Replace Components

  • Deleting a component removes the component from the assembly
  • Duplicating components with constraints. After pasting there are two instances of the part
  • Replacing a component

Position components using constraints

  • Freely moving components
  • Creating assembly constraints

Assembly constraints provide an intuitive way to position components with respect to each other.

  • Updating assembly constraints
  • Creating quick constraints
  • Hiding constraints

Design parts in the context of the assembly

  • Designing in-context of an assembly

Part features and sketches can be design in context of an assembly

Parts can be sketched on the faces of neighboring components

Sketch constraints can be defined using elements in other components

Features can be limited up-to other components

3D elements from other components can be projected onto and intersected with the sketch plane.

  • Aligning components for sketching

Analyze the assembly

  • Measuring an assembly
  • Computing clash and clearance

Clash analysis is used to check for interference between components

Clearance analysis is used to ensure the proper clearance between components

  • Viewing mechanical properties
  • Analyzing constraints

Capture various states of the assembly for analyzing the design and preparing for drafting

  • Creating scenes
  • Applying scenes to an assembly
  • Creating drafting views based on scenes
  • Synchronizing scenes with changes to an assembly
  • Deleting scenes

Scenes enable capturing and restoring the state of components in an assembly. They are useful for creating assembly drawings and designing with the assembly in various state.

Scenes can control

  • hide state of components
  • color of components
  • position of components

The position, color, and hide state of components can be set in a scene. This does not effect the assembly.

Scenes make it possible to have drafting views where components are in different state than the assembly. Scenes also avoid the need to manually reconstruct views as components are added, deleted, replaced and moved in an assembly.

Generative Drafting

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