CATIA (Computer Aided Three dimensional Interactive Application) (IPA pronunciation: ) is a PLM/CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM.

Features and Capabilities

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Commonly referred to as a 3D Product Lifecycle Management software suite, CATIA supports multiple stages of product development. The stages range from conceptualization, through design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM), until analysis (CAE). CATIA provides an open development architecture through the use of interfaces, which can be used to customize or develop applications. The application programming interfaces supported are as follows:

• The Fortran and C programming languages for version 4 (V4).
• The Visual Basic and C++ programming languages for version 5 (V5).

These APIs are referred to as CAA for V4 and CAA2 (or CAA V5) for V5. The CAA2 are component object model (COM) based interfaces. They provide integration for products developed on the CATIA suite of software.

Although later versions of CATIA V4 implemented NURBS, version 4 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.

As of 2006, the latest release is V5 release 16 (V5R16_SP5).

Notable Industries using CATIA

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CATIA is widely used throughout the engineering industry, especially in the automotive and aerospace sectors. In this industry CATIA V4, CATIA V5, Pro/ENGINEER, and NX are the dominant systems. Dassault Systemes has expanded its reach into the Shipbuilding Domain with CATIA V5 release 8, which includes additional functionality serving ship builder needs.

Outside of those industries, Canadian architect Frank Gehry has used the software, through the C3 Smartmodel company, to design his award-winning curvilinear buildings. His technology arm, Gehry Technologies, has been developing software based on CATIA V5 named Digital Project. Digital Project has been used to design buildings, but none have actually been constructed using the new software.

The Boeing Company used CATIA V4 to develop the Boeing 777 jetliner, and is currently using CATIA V5 for the Boeing 787 series aircraft. They have employed the full range of Dassault Systemes' 3D PLM products, comprising of CATIA, DELMIA, and ENOVIA. ^*

General Dynamics' Electric Boat division used CATIA to design the latest United States Navy fast attack submarine, the USS Virginia (SSN-774) And Northrop Grumman Newport News also used CATIA to design CVN-21 aircraft supercarriers for the US Navy [http://www.nn.northropgrumman.com/cvn21/facts.html.

Europian aerospace giant Airbus is also using CATIA extensively for its design and development activities ^*.

Canadian aircraft manufacturing company Bombardier Aerospace has all its designing done on CATIA ^*.

German automotive company BMW is using CATIA ^*.

External links

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• http://www.3ds.com/
• http://www.catia.com/
• http://www.delmia.com/
• http://www.enovia.com/

Non Commercial CATIA Forums:

• http://www.coe.org/
• http://www.catiav5forum.de/
• http://www.catiopia.com

Computer-aided design software | Computer-aided manufacturing software | Computer-aided engineering software | IRIX software | Product Lifecycle Management

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