10 Reasons for Transitioning to CATIA V6 (Part 1 of 5)

1. Database document management

CATIA V6 connects to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, and as such enjoys all of the benefits that the industry has come to expect from PDM. Version management, modification rights, release control etc… are all present and configurable to the company’s needs. This means that in addition to all of the other features described below, CATIA users migrating from file-based CATIA V5 to V6 will be able to work much more efficiently. All of the grief associated with managing collaborative working, such as manually copying files, trying to manage revisions and trying not to accidentally overwrite other’s work you have loaded in session, is all dispensed with.

2. Infrastructure changes

Simply put, CATIA V6 works quicker by taking advantage of a computer’s resources far more effectively than V5, reducing the waiting times on rendering, loading large assemblies and performing complicated mathematics. It may sound like a trivial change to some, but this affects virtually every operation CATIA makes, which can amount to a substantial time saving for every user.  The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is designed to be hosted on the web from the ground up. This means that whether you are connecting CATIA to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform through the web or on the company local network, you will be transmitting and receiving data optimised for the current network state. CATIA will also only request the data it needs when opening assemblies, only loading the full data for the assembly’s component parts when requested by the user.  This is similar to CATIA V5’s cache mode, except that the lightweight files needed for this process are created by a server process beforehand, speeding up the loading process even further.

The web based nature of ENOVIA also makes it easy for users to connect their session to the database, encrypted from anywhere without the need for complex setup on each client machine. This makes collaboration between different sites or businesses convenient.

(Note that CATIA V6 remains a ‘client application’, like V5, installed on a user’s PC. CATIA V6 communicates with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform via an internet-compatible connection. Non-CATIA users connect through a web browser).