 |
| CATI - Early 3D Cad Software |
From simple sketches to complex surfaces, cad software plays a major part in design. One such software is Catia (Computer Graphics Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application).
Developed by Dassault Aviation in France about 1967, the software was to define the shape of aircraft. With the aqusition of CADAM (Computer Graphics Augmented Design And Manufacturing) in 1975 from Lockheed, Dassault could shape exteriors with curves, surfaces and volumes in 3D and interior from 2d drawings.
| Screen shot from CATI - Conception Assistée Tridimensionnelle Interactive  |
| Example of an Application |
At around the 10 year mark, Dassault Aviation began to develop Catia, or Cati as it was known then, in earnest. The goals being to better integrate 3D with cadam and reduce design/manufacturing time.
A decision to create a new business around Catia saw the creation of Dassault Systems, moving all cad/cam teams to this new business to develop Catia for a wide variety of industry.
With an alliance to IBM set up, they would market world wide using cadam for 2d and catia for 3d applications.
Catia Version 1 was released to industry in November 1981.
It had a very slow start with only six customers, 3 of these customers were from the aero industry and 3 Automotive.
Dassault were themselves one of the customers along with Grumman(Aero, USA), SNECMA(Jet Engines, France), Daimler Benz (Auto, Germany), BMW (Auto, Germany) and Honda(Auto, Japan).
From 1982 Catia began to generate interest, and by 1984 Dassault Systems had grown there share of the cad market. From then on it was onward and upwards with 400 customers in 1985,
Dassault Systems USA was created and IBM became No1 for cadam/catia. Boeing selected catia as its design tool of choice in 1986, making an announcement in all the French news papers of the time.
By 1991 Dassault Systems had subsidiaries in USA & Japan, more than 2500 customers and many software and service partners. with IBM being a strategic partner they had aquired cadam. Catia v3 was also released, and the first digital mock-ups were viewed.
Everything isn't all plain sailing though as an earthquake in California destroys the Dassault offices.
An update to Catia in 1995 saw Catia V4 as was properly known. The system is up and running in 8000+ major customer sites in a wide range of industry from Aero, Automotive, Ship building and plant design to name but a few.
Dassault Systems were floated on the stock exchange a year later and the following year purchased Solidworks to address the design centric market. they also purchased Deneb to address manufacturing issues.
Plans to re-write Catia were released, and a year later Catia V5 was rolled out. To support PLM (Product Life-cycle Management) it would only support two operating systems, Windows and Unix. The acquisition of IBM PDM assest leads to the creation of Enovia.
Dassualt systems continue to purchase companies to boost stratigic business areas. Companies such as Smartteam to compliment Enovia in the PDM areana, or Spatial a 3d software components company and Structural Research and Analytic Corp to give catia analytic solutions. There were also the consolidation of some companies to offer a complete manufacturing solution.
The early 2000's saw aqusitions of Knowledge Technologies International to accelerate knowledge engineering development, the creation of a joint venture with Geometric Software Solutions the first offshore development lab in india and Toyota Motor Corp confirmed leadership with PLM V5 solutions.
V5 is now in all major customer sites and proving to be one of the most powerfull and flexable software solutions for design. So much so that in the Auto industry it can be used for concept to Class A and then down stream to engineering. It's parametric capeabilities allowing parts to be designed and modified with ease.
However, just as most get to grip with the complete change between V4 and V5 in both appearance and operation new version is announced. Catia V6 will better integrate Designers and none-Cad specialists.
CATIA V4 TO CATIA V5 - From Personal Experience.
I was taught Catia V4 around 89/90. The equipment we used were a large black and white monitor, a keyboard, a light pen and a metal box with several rows of buttons. The buttons on the box selected a function to be performed, such as a line, plane or surface. As memory serves you would hold the light pen to the screen and push once to select. I don't really remember too much more about this equipment but when we went onto the job we had the latest in 19 inch color screens and a large digitizing tablet with a small 4 button puck on it used to select function or geometry. The box of buttons had been refined and was now a nice plastic design performing the same job of selecting the operations. There was also a new piece of equipment. A rectangular plastic box with eight dials on, affectionately know as 'the pigs tits'. The dials zoomed, spun and dragged the model on screen. The appearance on screen was of a deep dark blue background with an axis at center screen. To the right was a single row of commands, which expanded to show sub commands. Around 1995/6 there was an equipment change that saw the buttons and the dials removed and the tablet replaced with a mouse. This may have been a financial decision or a technology update as the previous year saw the on screen appearance and some functionality change. The command line was changed form a single row to a double row showing command and sub command. This made for a quicker and easier selection of functions. Catia remained in this form until it became V5, although a spaceball could be used if your company were willing to pay for one .I worked with Catia V4 for 14 years and found it one of the best Cad systems, compared to what friends and colleges who used other systems around the same time, would say about there 3D systems. When Catia V5 was introduced I was lucky enough to be taught by one of the top trainers on the system. It was a complete shock to see how this new Cad software worked and was going to be a steep learning curve. Now six years down the line I think this is one of the best design software solutions for design today. The parametric capabilities allow for a quick change or mod to be carried out although one draw back is the method by which designers model. Personally I find it easier to model in a feature based type of way whereby I identify features I need and model them as individual parts then assemble them into the main body of the part. This allows me to separate any feature that fails an update and work on that without compromising the model. As I lay out the model in various sets I have sub assemblies and a final piece that can be viewed so I know what each sub part looks like. I have come across times where designers just model in one continuos line of geometry, often jumping up and down the tree while making their model. While this is not wrong it just makes it difficult for someone to pick up and modify their work. The historical graph can be used but can be very confusing. In summing up my experiences of Catia are all positive. It's a great 3d cad system, In my humble opinion one of the best.
Catia has certainly come a long way and with the inclusion of IcemSurf, for a better Class A surfacing package it is almost the complete system of choice.
The above article has been written with reference from A history of CATIA by former CEO of Dassault Systemes Francis Bernard and my own personal thought and experience.
