Popular 3D CAD Software: CATIA. CATIA V6

Popular 3D CAD Software: CATIA. CATIA V6
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About CATIA

CATIA is one of the most popular CAD/CAM software developed by French company Dassault Systemes. The software was originally developed by French aircraft manufacturer Avions Marcel Dassault in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which used it to develop company Mirage fighter jet. This highly useful software was later adopted by a number of companies in automobiles, aerospace, shipping and other industries.

Initially the software was known as CATI (Conception Assistee Tridimensionnelle Interactive). In the year 1981 the company Avions Marcel Dassault changed its name to CATIA and formed a subsidiary to further develop the software and market it throughout the world. The agreement was signed with IBM to distribute the software worldwide and even at present the software is being distributed IBM.

Overview of CATIA

CATIA is being used extensively in number of industries like automobiles, aerospace, ship building, industrial machinery, electrical and electronics etc. Let us see some of the highlights of CATIA software:

  1. CATIA is unique in the sense that it is integrated suite of Computer Aided Designing (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM). Thus if your company is looking for complete automation of the manufacturing unit CATIA can offer you a complete solution. The CAD part will help in designing while the CAM part will help in manufacturing within the shortest possible time.

  2. CATIA can help in performing various functions right from product conceptualization, product specifications, and designing to the product manufacturing planning. Once you have a concept for the product there are all the tools to come out with the finished product.

  3. CATIA helps carry out number of functions within the product life cycle. It helps in designing of the product, analyzing the product, simulation of the product, developing 3D models, etc.

  1. CATIA helps increasing productivity of the designers and the manufacturing personnel by integrating and designing and manufacturing features.

  2. Since almost all the functions related to product life cycle can be performed on CATIA, the response to market needs becomes very fast. The companies can focus on creativity and innovation and come out with the new products faster than the competition.

  3. CATIA supports application programming interface (API) like Visual Basic and C++.

The latest version of CATIA is V6, which puts collaboration innovation at the heart of enterprise.

Reference

  1. Wikipedia
  1. IBM V5

This post is part of the series: Popular 3D CAD Software.

This is the series of articles that describes most popular CAD software like AutoCAD, CATIA, SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer, and IDEAS.

  1. Popular CAD Software: AutoCAD Software
  2. Popular 3D CAD Software: CATIA
  3. Popular 3D CAD Software: SolidWorks