When developing large and complex products such as cars or aeroplanes, you can be faced with the need to use numerous CAD systems in-house, on a single product design and manufacturing task

Whilst this design process may be an efficient way to manufacture these types of products it can cause problems when the CAD data needs to be exchanged by those involved in the design process who may not be using the same CAD software. CAD to CAD and CAD to Visualization translators are available, but what if the OEM uses CATIA but needs to also access CAD data from NX, CREO or JT systems directly from within their CATIA design environment without the need for external translation tools?

Theorem have come up with a  Multi-CAD solution that  allows designers and engineers to do just that. Based upon the Dassault Systemes XCAD infrastructure, it allows CATIA V5 users to incorporate parts and assemblies from the other CAD systems, such as NX and Creo, within the CATIA environment without having to use external translators. It pulls the files directly into CATIA and uses the existing V5 commands of “Insert existing component”, “file open” and “file save as”. It then checks the geometry for errors and validates the integrity of the data as it comes into CATIA. The beauty of the solution is the interlinking of the CATIA and foreign CAD data.
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