Editor’s Pick: CATIA V4/V5 Translator Supports SolidWorks 2011

By DE Editors

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

So, I was reading SolidSmack, one of my favorite blogs. Josh Mings, who occasionally writes for DE, was blogging about a CATIA-SolidWorks translator that he had stumbled upon. He raised a number of interesting points,  but I’m just going to focus one: the hassle of it all. Right after I read Josh’s blog, I stumbled on an announcement from CCE that sounds like it could provide some hassle-free CATIA-SolidWorks translations.

The lede of today’s Pick of the Week write-up is that CCE’s CAT5Works now supports bi-directional SolidWorks 2011 to CATIA V4/V5 import and export in addition to 2009 and 2010 support. The features that interested me are, in no particular order, transfers of CATIA V5 FT&A entities to SolidWorks, the ability to import CATIA V5 Release 6 to 20 .CATPart and CATProduct files to SolidWorks and the reverse with SolidWorks files, and the ability to translate hidden entities. Color support too.

But what I like best about what I’ve learned of CAT5Works is that it requires what the company says is a single button to make your data transfer happen. I’m sure that there’s a bit more to it than that, but if you get out of the gate with a good translation without a huge hassle, tidying up becomes way less of a productivity blackhole. Which is pretty much golden when you need to make those files from that client of yours fit into the assembly you’re working on right away.

You can read about the features in the latest release of CAT5Works from today’s Pick of the Week write-up. But, really, if you tremble at the thought of yet again fighting to get files to and from CATIA V4/V5 and SolidWorks, hit the link at the end of the write-up and sign-up for an evaluation of CAT5Works. It sounds like it could be a winner.

Thanks, pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s Pick of the Week write-up.

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