CATIA-CADAM Solutions Continues Improving With New Release 2.0
Expanding customer competitiveness in manufacturing, analysis and digital mock-up
Charlotte, NC, & Paris, France (July 07, 1998) РCustomers in the shipbuilding, construction, aerospace and automotive industries are among the major beneficiaries of the three new products and 37 others enhanced in CATIA-CADAM Solutions Version 4 Release 2.0** announced today by IBM* and Dassault Syst̬mes. The new release expands the CATIA portfolio to 115 products. It operates on IBM, Silicon Graphics Inc.,
Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems UNIX workstations. General availability is July 10, 1998.
The new Version 4 Release 2.0 supports customers from 2D drawing to digital mock-up methodologies and notably expands customer competitiveness and productivity in three major domains — manufacturing, analysis and digital mock-up.
For manufacturing, construction and other industries requiring comprehensive yet integrated, associative and easier-to-use manufacturing tools, Release 2.0 expands the manufacturing solution by introducing a new product — Lathe Machining Programmer. This product 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. Other enhancements in the manufacturing domain include a higher level of automation for prismatic machining and an extension of multi-axis capabilities for contouring and surfacing. Moreover, programming and machining productivity is significantly enhanced in the mold and die areas.
For industries where analysis on assembly is critical, especially in fabrication and assembly or the aerospace and automotive industries,
Version 4 Release 2.0 introduces a new dedicated product — Assembly and Substructure Analysis. It analyzes very large assemblies, as well as
individual components in the context of the assembly. This allows true concurrent engineering on large systems and rapid design-analysis iterations on a component. Dedicated analysis functions are introduced for car body meshing, in preparation for crash, noise and vibration
simulations. For sheet metal or plastic parts, another new analysis enhancement is the ability to generate a shell mesh directly from a thin solid.
The new Version 4 Release 2.0 further implements the digital mock-up process. The definition and analysis of wire harnesses can now be
performed in multi model fashion, consistent with the way automotive and aerospace industries segment their design either spatially or functionally. This gives much more flexibility in determining the most optimal design and placement for wire bundles. To better perform quality engineering at any level of a product structure, customers can now assign 3D tolerances on assemblies within the digital mockup.
Other enhancements include: the capability to generate the 3D solid representation of composite material parts and integrate the representation
within a digital mockup; and the extension of CATIA 4D Navigator, the tool of choice for digital mockup inspection and simulation, to become CAD
independent to support access to any CAD systems. With 4D Navigator, users can also browse on ENOVIA information. This complete integration between the logical representation (BOM, configuration) and the 3D physical representation of products gives a better understanding of the status of product development.
Bernard Charlès, president of Dassault Systèmes, says: “This announcement shows how CATIA Version 4 keeps on improving. Dassault Systèmes and IBM are continuing to highly invest in Version 4 with ongoing developments in response to customers’ evolving needs. This continued portfolio evolution is the best guarantee for Version 4 longevity and our commitment to bring the most advanced technology to the CAD/CAM/CAE market to enable continued productivity increases by our customers.”
“The new products and enhancements of Release 2.0 in domains which are critical for our customers prove once again how no other CAD product
remotely approaches the capabilities of CATIA,” adds Frank Lerchenmueller, vice president of IBM’s Worldwide Engineering Technology Solutions Unit. “Any industrial or manufacturing customer that combines the rich functionality of Version 4 with IBM’s services, hardware and e-business transformation capabilities is getting an unbeatable combination.”
Beyond core manufacturing, analysis and digital mock-up application enhancements, Release 2.0 increases coverage of highly specialized
applications and increases productivity on industry specific processes. In the composite area, a new dedicated product, Generative Composite Manufacturing, integrates the laser projection process support as well as preparation for the nesting. Other mechanical and shape applications such as Body-in-White Templates, Generative Aerospace Sheet Metal Design, Generative Shape Modeling, and Covering are enhanced with specific features to capture know-how and enhance user productivity.
Also, for all industries, including fabrication and assembly, which heavily rely on CATIA drawing production capabilities, this new release of CATIA
Version 4 increases the productivity of drawing creation through 2D view sketching with ease-of-use features for automatic drawing layout, automated view positioning and faster annotation.
Release 2.0 of CATIA-CADAM Shipbuilding Solution** now brings to ship builders and their suppliers an integrated end-to-end or “concept to
operation” solution, with extended modeling features, industry standard support and new generative capabilities in the ship hull steelwork design
product. All disciplines can cooperate along the product life cycle, from the initial hull design through outfitting, which includes piping and
instrumentation diagrams, piping and hull form to HVAC, cabletray, electrical, equipment and systems, accommodation and work production. Designers and builders now have a common base for design, configuration management, manufacturing, commissioning, maintenance and operations.
Juhani Kivi, vice director for EDP at Deltamarin Ltd. of Raisio, Finland, one of the world’s leading ship design and marine engineering consulting companies, said CATIA is an extremely valuable tool in helping his company design entire vessels, including Finland’s newest ice breaker and numerous cargo ships. “We use CATIA to design internal areas, such as the bridge and the galley, along with the actual hull, deck structure and propulsion systems,” he said. “With CATIA’s 4D 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.”
Peter Motikat, technical director, Meyer Werft, said, “Since 1989, we have been using CATIA extensively in designing our ships, including one of the largest cruise liners in the world, the SuperStar Leo, that will be commissioned this fall”. Meyer Werft, located in Papenburg, Germany, is one of the most modern shipyards in the world. “We are excited about the new CATIA capabilities because this software is integral to virtually every aspect of a cruise ship’s design,” Motikat adds. “We go beyond such things as general arrangement, structural steel, HVAC, piping accommodation and electrical design and use CATIA for such crucial features as the on-board shopping mall, swimming pools and entertainment centers.”
Release 2.0 of CATIA-CADAM Plant Design Solutions** eases digital manufacturing plant model creation and review processes, resulting in reduced time-to-market and reduced costs. The introduction of the Digital Factory configuration in Version 4 Release 2.0 provides new solutions for product launch planning and retooling, and production volume adjustment. Full review of all equipment data in the digital factory mock-up is enabled while navigating throughout the digital plant definition with the CATIA 4D Navigator. This allows detailed checks to be made between the spatial arrangement and the manufacturing process itself as well as ergonomics review and safety procedure compliance.
Dassault Systèmes is a worldwide recognized leader in CAD and PDM II markets. Through a unique strategic partnership, CATIA-CADAM Solutions are marketed, distributed and supported by IBM worldwide. This unique partnership is now extended to PDM II solutions. In the network-computing environments, the Java-based CATweb product line provides a graphical window into native enterprise product data. For the PDM II market, ENOVIA Corp., a Dassault Systèmes company, provides with its ENOVIAVPM and ENOVIAPM product lines a new multi-CAD collaborative and innovative environment for virtual product and process modeling and management across the extended enterprise.
Source: IBM