CATIA V5 Tips…

Nodes Customization in the CATIA

specification tree
How to customize the Display of part / product attributes in the Specification Tree
in the CATIA Window in an assembly environment?

For Example if you have a Part named “PART_A” with a Revision “2.2A” and has
“Make” as source; you can actually make all of such properties of a part / product
to show up in the Specification Tree.

The usual display of the above mentioned part would be:

With part Properties defined as

But a customized Display can look like…..

Where you can see Part Name, Instance name, Part description and source are
shown in the node display of Specification tree.
This is very simple to do…

Go to Tools
Options in CATIA Window and choose Infrastructure
Product-

Structure to choose the Nodes customization Tab

This tab deals with the following categories of options:

 Reference Product,
 Product instance, reference loaded,
 Product instance, reference unloaded.
To Set options for the above mentioned product categories, click on the configure
button on the “Node Management Tab” for any of these categories:

This will open up the configure toolbar where you can set the following properties
to display:

Click on the Toggle buttons to add the property in the Text Box on the top of this
dialog box, please note that you can also specify a spacer between (In the above
mentioned case, it is “ ---) “

You can click the box of your choice and the abbreviation of this option (#DR# for
Description, for instance) is automatically reported in the empty field, in the top of
the window. By default, the #PN# option is always selected.

You can directly replace the abbreviation (#PN#,#RE#,...) by the term of your
choice (between two #) and it will appear in the Product Structure. By the same
way, you can add a comma and a blank space between these parameters.
To Display a user defined attribute from the Product / part “Properties” window,
the format is this “#@User Defined Parameter Name@#”

For Example, you have added a “Vendor” attribute in User defined attribute, you
will type as “#@Vendor@#” to display in the specification tree

By default, the Nodes Customization toggle options are not enabled.

MOdfying specification tree display
 PRO-E DATA TO CATIAV5 CONVERSION
DOCUMENTATION
PREPARED BY
K
VINOD KUMAR
179288

IMPORTANT NOTE:-
IF THE CAD DESIGNER IS GETTING THE 3D CAD DATA FOR
PACKAGING, THEN ONE HAS TO GET THE RESP. 3D DATA ,
WHICH IS ONLY REQUIRED i.e SUCH AS ENVOLOPE.The whole
engine assembly should be sent as one asm and related part files having
the complete envelope. ( No inner details data is required such as engine
etc..)

This format is preferred for obtaining the client data, it should be used. If
the client doesn’t have PRO-E data then STEP is the preferred format.
 Requirements
Part Number must be unique, all parts with the same name are considered as identical.

The MULTICAx Pro/Engineer PD Plug-in allow users to import Pro/Engineer (ProE)

native parts and assembly models into V5. ProE part geometry is converted into the
CATIA Graphical Representation (CGR) or V5 Part (CATPart) format, while ProE
assembly files are imported into a V5 product structure document (CATProduct).

You may perform this import

• Interactively (for all V5 platforms)

General information
• Converted surfaces may be in the form of:
o ProE solid surfaces
o Surfaces imported into ProE from formats such as IGES or the ProE
quilt set of surfaces (which are imported based on a user-indicated option in
case of cgr conversion).
• Native ProE parts and assemblies can be interactively imported.
• V5 data (CATProduct, CGR, and CATPart files) generated through the
command line can be interactively imported as well.
• The assembly import converts the ProE assembly hierarchy into product
structure, along with the proper positions.
• Simplified Representations and Part Instances, when present, may be
optionally imported when using a ProE license.
• ProE part files must have a .prt.* extension (with or without the version
number).
• ProE assembly files must have a .asm.* extension (with or without the
version number).
• A product structure document (either new or previously created) must be
visible to import data interactively.

When importing ProE part geometry, MULTICAx PD Plug-in converts all solid bodies
belonging to visible layers in the ProE part into the CGR-faceted form, with user-
specified tessellation parameters. In addition, parts can optionally be imported in
the CATPart data format, with full support for exact geometry. Coordinate systems
can also be retrieved in the generated CGR and CATPart files. Any part user
attributes defined in the original part are stored in the CATProduct or CATPart
document

Protocols and attributes

The following protocols or attributes apply to batch conversions:

• Length units for both parts and assemblies are converted to millimeters.
• Assembly-level colors and other features are not supported.
• Pure wire frame data are not supported during the conversion.
• Text and annotations are not supported.
• Parts and sub-assemblies residing in invisible layers will not be converted.
• Cable elements are not supported.

Direct mode
• The MULTICAx Pro/Engineer (PD) Plug-in is supported by Windows only.
• MULTICAx ProE currently supports ProE files up to version 20.

This program has the following limitations:

• No support for drawing import.

• Support of Part instances and simplified representation requires .xpr and .xas
files to be present.
• Support of Part instances requires .xpr and .xas files to be in the same
directory as the ProE file.
• Instance name must be in uppercase in the
Tools/Option/General/Compatibility tab (as it is in ProE).

Licensing requirements

For Windows:
Foreign
CAD Drafting CAD File
Part Assembly V5 License
Format support license Extension
required
OK
(only with a Optional PDL
.asm, .prt,
ProE 20 OK OK 2000i2 or (ProE 2001, (ENOVIA,CATIA)
.drw
2001 2000i2) MPP (DELMIA)
license)

Importing a ProE File Interactively

The following procedures describe how to import ProE parts or assemblies into a
product structure document.
• The ProE part files must have the .prt or .prt.x extension (where x is a
number).
• The ProE assembly files must have the .asm.* extension.
•
•
• When assembly files are converted interactively, the conversion requires
only one step; the conversion of an intermediary layout file is not required as
it is with command line conversions.
 1. Open an empty or existing product structure document.

2. On the product structure document, use the right mouse button to select
the product under which the ProE part is to be imported. A menu
appears.

3. Select Existing Component. A dialog box appears, such as the one

shown below.

4. Set the file type to *.prt (for .prt files) or .prt.* (for .prt.x files) or
.asm.* and navigate to the directory where the desired part or assembly
files are present.

5. Select the part or assembly file to be imported. Click the Open button.
The selected part or assembly appears under the selected product in the
product structure.
In the example below, the product selected in step 2 was Complete.1
(highlighted in orange) ; the part selected in step 5 was finish.prt.
 In the example below, Product 1 was the product selected in step 2;
auto.asm was the assembly selected in step 4.

An alternative method to performing steps 2 and 3 is to select the product with

the left mouse button, then, from the menu bar, select Insert->Existing
Component.