Amir Malekzadeh

CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by the French company Dassault Systemes and marketed worldwide by IBM. Written in the C++ programming language, CATIA is the cornerstone of the Dassault Systemes product lifecycle management software suite.
CATIA competes in the CAD/CAM/CAE market with Siemens NX, Pro/ENGINEER, Autodesk Inventor, and SolidEdge as well as many others.

History

CATIA started as an in-house development in 1977 by French aircraft manufacturer Avions Marcel Dassault, at that time customer of the CADAM CAD software^[1] to develop Dassault's Mirage fighter jet, then was adopted in the aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, and other industries.
Initially named CATI (Conception Assistée Tridimensionnelle Interactive — French for Interactive Aided Three-dimensional Design ) — it was renamed CATIA in 1981, when Dassault created a subsidiary to develop and sell the software, and signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with IBM.^[2]
In 1984, the Boeing Company chose CATIA as its main 3D CAD tool, becoming its largest customer.
In 1988, CATIA version 3 was ported from mainframe computers to UNIX.
In 1990, General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp chose CATIA as its main 3D CAD tool, to design the U.S. Navy's Virginia class submarine.
In 1992, CADAM was purchased from IBM and the next year CATIA CADAM V4 was published. In 1996, it was ported from one to four Unix operating systems, including IBM AIX, Silicon Graphics IRIX, Sun Microsystems SunOS and Hewlett-Packard HP-UX.
In 1998, an entirely rewritten version of CATIA, CATIA V5 was released, with support for UNIX, Windows NT and Windows XP since 2001.
In 2008, Dassault announced and released CATIA V6.^[3] While the server can run on Microsoft Windows, Linux or AIX, client support for any operating system other than Microsoft Windows is dropped.^[4]

Release history

Name/Version	Latest Build Number	Original Release Date	Latest Release Date
CATIA v4	R25	1993	January 2007
CATIA v5	R20	1998	February 2010
CATIA v6	R2011x	29/05/2008	November 2010

Scope of Application

Commonly referred to as a 3D Product Lifecycle Management software suite, CATIA supports multiple stages of product development (CAx), from conceptualization, design (CAD), manufacturing (CAM), and engineering (CAE). CATIA facilitates collaborative engineering across disciplines, including surfacing & shape design, mechanical engineering, equipment and systems engineering.

Surfacing & Shape Design

CATIA provides a suite of surfacing, reverse engineering, and visualization solutions to create, modify, and validate complex innovative shapes. From subdivision, styling, and Class A surfaces to mechanical functional surfaces.

Mechanical Engineering

CATIA enables the creation of 3D parts, from 3D sketches, sheetmetal, composites, molded, forged or tooling parts up to the definition of mechanical assemblies. It provides tools to complete product definition, including functional tolerances, as well as kinematics definition.

Equipment Design

CATIA facilitates the design of electronic, electrical as well as distributed systems such as fluid and HVAC systems, all the way to the production of documentation for manufacturing.

Systems 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 the Visual Basic and C++ programming languages via CAA (Component Application Architecture) V5 can be adapted via the Visual Basic and C++ programming languages, an API called CAA2 or CAA V5 that is 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.

Supported operating systems and platforms

CATIA V6 runs only on Microsoft Windows and MacOS with limited products.
CATIA V5 runs on Microsoft Windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit), and as of Release 18 Service Pack 4 on Windows Vista 64.^[5] IBM AIX, Hewlett Packard HP-UX and Sun Microsystems Solaris are supported.^[6]
CATIA V4 is supported for those Unixes^[7] and IBM MVS and VM/CMS mainframe platforms up to release 1.7.
CATIA V3 and earlier run on the mainframe platforms.

[edit] Notable industries using CATIA

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 is currently using 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.^[8]
The development of the Indian Light Combat Aircraft has been using CATIA V5.
Chinese Xian JH-7A is the first aircraft developed by CATIA V5, when the design was completed on September 26, 2000.
European aerospace giant Airbus has been using CATIA since 2001.^[9]
Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier Aerospace has done all of its aircraft design on CATIA.^[10]
The Brazilian aircraft company, EMBRAER, use Catia V4 and V5 to build all airplanes.
Vought Aircraft Industries use CATIA V4 and V5 to produce its parts.
The British Helicopter company, Westlands, use CATIA V4 and V5 to produce all their aircraft. Westlands is now part of an Italian company called Finmeccanica the joined company calls themselves AgustaWestland.
The main supplier of helicopters to the U.S Military forces, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., uses CATIA as well.

[edit] Automotive

Many automotive companies use CATIA to varying degrees, including BMW, Porsche, Daimler AG, Chrysler, Honda, Audi,^[11] Volkswagen, Bentley Motors Limited, Volvo, Fiat, Benteler AG, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Renault, Toyota, Ford, Scania, Hyundai, Škoda Auto, Tesla Motors, Valmet Automotive, Proton, Tata motors and Mahindra & Mahindra Limited. Goodyear uses it in making tires for automotive and aerospace and also uses a customized CATIA for its design and development. Many automotive companies use CATIA for car structures — door beams, IP supports, bumper beams, roof rails, side rails, body components — because CATIA is very good in surface creation and Computer representation of surfaces.

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.^[12] Northrop Grumman Newport News also used CATIA to design the Gerald R. Ford class of supercarriers for the US Navy.^[13]

Transportation

Bombardier Transportation, Canada is using CATIA software to design its entire fleet of Train engines, Coaches.

Other

Architect Frank Gehry has used the software, through the C-Cubed Virtual Architecture company, now Virtual Build Team, to design his award-winning curvilinear buildings.^[14] His technology arm, Gehry Technologies, has been developing software based on CATIA V5 named Digital Project.^[15] Digital Project has been used to design buildings and has successfully completed a handful of projects.

File compatibility and CATIA V4 /V5 /V6 conversion

Dassault Systemes provides utilities to convert CATIA V4 data files so they are accessible to CATIA V5 and CATIA V6. Still, cases show that there can be issues in the data conversion from CATIA V4 to V5, from either differences in the geometric kernel between CATIA V4 and CATIA V5, or by the modelling methods employed by end users. Experiment results show that there can be data loss during the conversion (from 0% to 90%). The percentage loss can be minimized by using the appropriate pre-conversion clean-up, choosing the appropriate conversion options, and clean-up activities after conversion. On the other hand, transition from V5 to V6 is facilitated because they are sharing the same geometric kernel. Third-party file translators also up-convert CATIA files between versions.

Future implementations

Dassault Systemes released CATIA Version 6 (V6) in mid-2008.^[16] In November 2010, Dassault Systemes launched Catia V6R2011x, the latest release of its PLM2.0 platform while still continuing to support and improve its Catia V5 software. Latest release of Catia V5 is R20 SP5.