Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

CATIA versions

Status
Not open for further replies.
OUCH ... that's gotta hurt!

[cheers]
SW07-SP3
 
Yet another reason to stay on maintenance and keep software up to date. The French probably wanted to save a few hundred thou by staying on V4 and it ends up costing billions. Heads are gonna roll.
 
I agree.


Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 03-26-07)
 
The problem is that Catia V5 was totally rewritten so its a different cad program from V4. We considered upgrading our V4 to V5 but instead went to Solidworks. On was cost....Solidworks was much cheaper, two, Our V4 models came in with features but it wasn't perfect. Also, the model to drawing link was broken....drawing became 2d drawings only in V5.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.2 on WinXP SP2

 
I bet it was a tough decision...the problem was the old V4 program was written in Fortran and only ran on Unix. With everyone going to Windows, they had to do something. Apparently wasn't easy to port it so they rewrote V5 in C.

Perhaps the V4 to V5 conversion does drawings now.....I just know it didn't when the first V5 release was in beta...back around '98. Also, V4 made 2d drawings by actually drawing lines, arcs, and splines. You could trim the 2d drawing view geometry...though an update would put it back. Generating large assembly drawings took hours though.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.2 on WinXP SP2

 
Jason,
I found the same thing years ago taking drawings from V4 to V5. It was horrible. I exported V4 to .dwg format and brought in to SW was a lot cleaner than V5 convert

Macduff [spin]
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2007 SP 2.2
Dell 390 XP Pro SP 2
nVida Quadro FX 3450/4000



 
Yeah...thats what we did.....We batch translated all Catia models to Step format.....then batch translated drawings to dwg. Everything came in Swx fine.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.2 on WinXP SP2

 
An unfortunate side effect of this story for Solidworks (and other non-Catia systems) is that they get pushed out of the aerospace market.
I used to work for an Airbus supplier. For design and manufacture of their type of products, Solidworks (their current package) is as good as or better than Catia, and a whole lot cheaper.
But despite STEP files converting quite well, Airbus are really pushing for Catia models.
 
In this case, folks, bet you dimes to donuts that "different cad systems" is just a nice scapegoat. Sure, V4 is completed outdated and it's sure difficult to import models into, but the reality is that this is a total management failure. If a failure on your part will result in a two year delay then you take steps to avoid that failure. How about a mock up? How about some extra wire length in a few crucial spots? And how about an active response after the problem has been identified, for crying out loud!

We do aircraft tooling and automation and have been doing the SW - CATIA 4 - CATIA5 dance for years. Yup, it's a pain in the ass, but we've never blamed our failures on bad translations.

As for SW versus CATIA, it's an IQ test. You fail if you buy CATIA unless you have a very specific, compelling need. Perhaps the Composite Toolbox functionality might be an example of this. (Though I betcha the SW people would be happy to program this functionality into Solidworks if Boeing promised to buy xxx gazillion seats from them...

 
The managers that are in charge of CATIA at Boeing, do not want SW there, or any other CAD software. The others exist, but CATIA folks want to be the only ones.
It's not Boeing management, it's within the CAD support people.
SW is needed because it works well as a middle-man software. It can translate between CATIA and AutoCAD well.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 03-26-07)
 
Most any 3d software "CAN" work....fact is, not that long ago, people used to drawing airplanes on paper. Same goes for cars.

Still, Catia and UG both have some special modules for Automotive and Aerospace that might be hard for them to live without now. Not that they couldn't write custom programs to make Swx do the same. And they don't have to pay extra to use the API like in UG.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.2 on WinXP SP2

 
Amazing that this kind of thing can happen at a company the size of Airbus. I mean, we only have 40 seats of Solidworks and I still spend a few weeks testing a new version before upgrading - and compatibility of old data in with the new version is the first thing you test.

Surely this incompatibility between CATIA versions was a known issue - likely someone decided to take a calculated risk that somehow everything would work itself out...either that or it's a colossal communication breakdown.
 
Boeing has a lot of Unigraphics NX installed. I am not just referring to the MD facilities that were 'exclusivly' UG before Boeing bought MD, either. There is a lot of NX in the machining facilities in Seattle for the NC programmers.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
Sr IS Technologist
L-3 Communications
 
Here's something I always found funny with CAD systems and companies.
When I worked back in Ohio, I worked for a Power Plant (aircraft engines) accessory division in aerospace. We used CATIA as our sole CAD system in designing main engine fuel pumps. When our design was finished we needed to give our models to the engine manufacture for fit check/envelope verification. Let’s use Pratt and Whiskey and an example. Well P &W uses UG and there sole CAD system and had to convert our CATIA models to UG for P & W. here’s the part that I found amusing…. Now Boeing gets an order from an airline and the airline wants P & W power plants for the aircraft. Now P & W has to convert the UG models to CATIA for Boeing’s for fit check/envelope verification.

It’s a dog eat dog world, and I’m wearing Milkbone underwear.
-Norm from Cheers-


Macduff [spin]
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2007 SP 2.2
Dell 390 XP Pro SP 2
nVida Quadro FX 3450/4000



 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

CAD2015
  • Locked
  • Question
Tile Horizontally/Vertically - Catia 3DEXPERIENCE 1
Replies
1
Views
178
SBaugh
SBaugh
ferdo
  • Locked
  • Question
Importing points in CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE CLOUD 2019x 1
Replies
0
Views
332
ferdo
ferdo
TiagoFigueiredo
  • Locked
  • Question
1st CATIA 3d Experience test
Replies
8
Views
220
TiagoFigueiredo
TiagoFigueiredo
ferdo
  • Locked
  • Question
Revealing “Hidden” CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE 2017x (CLOUD) Commands
Replies
0
Views
110
ferdo
ferdo
ferdo
  • Locked
  • Question
Migration of CATIA V4 files
Replies
0
Views
70
ferdo
ferdo

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top Bottom