New Version Of Catia Offers Valuable New feels
An innovative CAD/CAM solution has added to its capabilities, with the recent release of Catia-CADAM Solutions Version 4, Release 2.0. The system is utilized by top design and construction firms in a variety of industries — notably Finland's Deltamarin and Germany's Meyer Werft — and the new version offers three new and 37 enhanced products designed to make the system a greater efficiency enhancement tool. The new Version 4, Release 2.0 supports customers from 2-D drawings to digital mock-up methodologies and notably, expands customer competitiveness and productivity in manufacturing, analysis and mock-up. "We use Catia to design internal areas, such as the bridge and the galley, along with the actual hull, deck structure and propulsion systems," said Juhani Kivi, vice director of EDP with Raisio, Finland-based Deltamarin. "With Catia's 4-D Navigator and the significant enhancements in the Catia-CADAM Shipbuilding Solutions, more than ever we can present an easily visualized end-to-end solution to the ship owners." While the Catia system is designed as a multi-industry support solution, the Release 2.0 of Catia-CADAM Shipbuilding Solution is designed to bring shipbuilders and suppliers an integrated "end-to-end" or "concept operation" solution, with extended modeling features, industry standard support and new generative capabilities in the ship hull steelwork design product. The system disciplines are designed to cooperate through the product's life cycle, from initial hull design through outfitting. It is designed as a common base for design, configuration management, manufacturing, commission, maintenance and operations.
Another of the new products offered in the upgraded package is the Lathe Machining Programmer, which provides extensive turning designs for such operations as roughing, grooving, threading and finishing. The new release also offers full integration across all Catia manufacturing product suites to enable mixing mill, drill and lathe operations in a seamless fashion.
The new release increases the productivity of drawing creation through 2-D view sketching with ease-of-use features for automatic drawing layout, automated view positioning and faster annotation.
Other system enhancements include: the capability to generate the 3-D solid representation of composite material parts and integrate the representation within a digital mock-up; and the extension of Catia 4-D Navigator, the tool for digital mock-up inspection and simulation, to become CAD independent to support access to any CAD system.
Peter Motikat, technical director at the well-respected Meyer Werft facility in Germany, a shipyard that is known for its adherence to the latest technological trends and systems, had this to say about the system: "Since 1989, we have been using Catia extensively in designing our ships, including one of the largest cruise liners in the world." "We go beyond such things as general arrangement, structural steel, HVAC, piping accommodation and electrical design, and use Catia for such crucial features as on-board shopping malls, swimming pools and entertainment centers." Catia-CADAM is from Dassault Systems, and is marketed, distributed and supported by IBM worldwide.