Surface toolbar

Surfaces toolbar comprises of tools like Extrude, Revolve, Sphere, Cylinder, Offset, Sweep, Fill, Offset, Blend etc. You can see all of the tools present in the attached picture. There are a few differences with regards to the sketch as we used it in the part-design workbench. 

Surfaces toolbar

If you remember, in the part-design workbench we read about the conditions that need to be met for a valid sketch. You can read about them here again if you have forgotten. Nonetheless, the condition i.e. sketch should not be open does not apply in surfacing and you can use a closed as well as open sketch for making a surface.

Designing parametric gear in Catia

Gears can fundamentally be classified according to the profile of the teeth. The profile of the teeth may be involute, cycloidal, trochoidal or even a combination of these profiles. 

Involute profile in red

The involute profile is basically a path traced by a point on a straight line which rolls without slipping on the circle. The circle is called the base circle of the involute. 

Epicycloid in red

The epicycloid is the path that's traced by a point on the circle as it rotates outside a circle, while hypocycloid is the path traced by a point on the circle as it rotates on the inside of another circle.

Geometrical sets and Hybrid design

Whenever you create a new part file, you are asked to enter the part name and also given the option to create geometrical set and ordered geometrical sets. So far we did not opt for these options due to the risk of complicating things. You can create geometrical set or ordered geometrical set, or even both in a partbody at the start by selecting the suitable option while providing the name of the part. 

Option provided when new part file being created

Alternatively, you can use the path Insert > Geometrical Set to create a set in case you did not create it at the time of part creation. Also, there's an option that is selected by default 'Enable hybrid design', let's see what's the purpose of these and what do they do. 

Measure toolbar

We have so far been only modeling parts without taking into consideration like how much does the part weigh? Also, while designing parts, you may need to immediately know (without going into drafting workbench) what's the angle between two faces etc. You can do all of it using Measure toolbar.

Measure toolbar

Measure toolbar has three tools

• Measure Between
• Measure Item
• Measure Inertia

Measure Between and Measure Item

The tools, Measure Between and Measure Item can be accessed from within each other's dialogue box, since both of these options include each other as suboptions and are actually grouped if you see below. The dialogue box below opens up and it has all the tool available for measurement.

Tools that can be accessed using Measure Between and Measure Item

Measure between - Measure between can be use to measure between any two points, lines, two surfaces, or even between any entity of your choice. You can change the selection mode to avoid picking any entity by mistake. Suppose if you wish to measure between two points, you can select mode as 'Point only' instead of 'Any geometry'.

Properties, Apply material and Graphic properties toolbar

In one of the previous post, we studied the graphic properties toolbar. The same graphic properties in addition to others like mechanical and feature properties can also be accessed using mouse right-click. You can right click on Part body or planes such as XY, YZ, ZX etc. to modify the properties of elements.

Properties of elements, bodies, planes can be accessed using right click

 

A distinction needs to be made that you can not only modify the properties of the entire Part body, but also a particular face of certain solid or a surface etc. This access to the properties of the element are available with the right-click of the mouse i.e. you can right-click on the particular element whose properties you wish to change and subsequently apply the properties. 

Boolean operations

What are boolean operations?

Boolean operations in Catia are just like boolean operation that you may have studied in mathematics or a subject called sets. It's not exactly the same and somewhat different and is more suited for modeling. In Catia, this is known as multibody concept. For that matter in most softwares, this is referred to as multi-body concept.

Common sets operations taught in school 

In Catia, boolean operation are applied between two bodies. So, unless you have two different bodies, you cannot apply the boolean operations. Boolean operations are available under Insert > Boolean operations. You can also apply boolean operations using the respective toolbar.

Knowledge toolbar

Knowledge toolbar in Catia comprises of many tools like formula, design table, law etc. These tools can help us build parts based on our mathematical and engineering-design knowledge. With the use of this, we can integrate the knowledge into the model itself and can replicate / modify parts with somewhat greater ease. Let us see how all these tools and options work.

Knowledge toolbar

You would be aware that in engineering design, we use knowledge of various principles. For example, in case of a beam, the section width may have certain relation with height, or thickness. We also know many other geometric relations like an equilateral triangle has equal sides, rectangle's opposite sides are equal etc. Catia can effectively integrate into the design itself using formula.

Catia can also deal effectively with fog i.e. functions i.e. f(x). You can see some of the sample functions that Catia can work with using this link. Before we can work with functions or formula, there's a more fundamental thing you should know about - parameters, since it lays foundation for defining functions as well as formula and makes them more meaningful and understandable. Let us now, how we can define parameters, relations and use them.

Transformation features toolbar

Transformation features toolbar

The transformation features toolbar comprises of several sub-toolbars like scale toolbar, patterns toolbar etc (see image). which we will discuss ahead. Other than the sub-toolbars, mirror tool is also present in the transformation features toolbar. I should mention that most of the time you will find yourself using only some of the tools like Scale, all types of patterns and mirror. So if you find some of the tools hard to understand, you can skip them and just learn the ones that I just mentioned.

In the image attached, you can see the black dropdown buttons along with some of the tools. Upon clicking them you can see that they are actually sub-toolbars and have other tools too. You can drag the toolbar out to see the complete sub-toolbar and its name.

Surface based features

Surface based features toolbar

Making a part solely with the part design workbench may not be possible. Therefore, at times, it may be required to use surfaces and we may create them in the Surface design workbench. The surfaces we create are put to use with the help of tools available in the surface based features toolbar. The surface based features toolbar comprises of tools like Split, Thick surface, Sew surface and Close surface. Let's see each none of them in detail.

Dress-up features toolbar

Dressup features toolbar

Dress up features toolbar, as the name suggests, has set of tools that are used for applying cosmetic features such as fillet, chamfer, draft etc. While tools like corner or fillet are available in sketcher too, it's advisable not to use them and instead apply such features in the part design workbench. It make the sketch simpler and modification easier. These features are generally applied towards the end, keeping in mind the standards that are being followed.

Editing parts in Catia, Parent-child relationship and Define in work object

Editing parts that you have made already, may involve redefining sizes for features like pad, pocket etc, reordering certain features, even deleting the features.

Redefining size - Redefining size is easy, and you need to double click on the feature on the solid, it may be pad, pocket, shaft etc. or on the specific feature in the specification tree for which you wish to change the size. In the dialogue box that opens up, you would be able to change its size as per need. This is essentially the same box that was presented to you using which you specified the size.

Using only certain parts of sketch, Positioned sketch and Sliding sketch

So far, we have used complete sketches for part creation with all our sketch based feature tools. We can use as many closed profiles in the tools as we want. However, we have never used only certain selected profiles present in the sketch. What if, we wish to use some profiles within the sketch for part creation and ignore the others? We can do this with the use of command "Go to profile definition".

How to use selective parts of sketch?

Reference elements toolbar

Reference elements toolbar

For making a solid model, default planes XY, YX and ZX may not always be sufficient and leave a designer wanting for more planes on which he can sketch and make complex parts easily. Also, you may not be able to specify direction for extrusion easily in case you wish to choose to specify direction with lines which are not coplanar with the default planes. So, reference elements help in more than one way and help extend the flexibility that the designer has at his disposal. Also, reference elements like points aid the creation of lines, and lines aid the creation process of planes and vice-versa.

Introduction to part modeling and Sketch based features

Part modeling refers to the creation of 3D models that are exact representation of the actual product that we wish to manufacture. These need to be the exact representation because based on this, the tooling is created or machine program is generated for manufacturing. The primary aim of making a sketch is to utilize it to make a 3D part. Therefore, a sketch is made keeping in mind the tools that are available in the part design workbench or other workbenches that we intend on using. The Part Design workbench comprises of variety of tools that help the designer convert the sketch into 3D model. Some designs may be difficult to model directly in the Part Design workbench. Therefore, to model those parts we take help of Wireframe and Surface design workbench, sheet metal design and other workbenches. We will see in a bit, how we use a sketch to make a part.

Following are some of the 3D parts, modeled in Catia.

Sketch based features

Sketch based features toolbar

The sketch based features toolbar is present in the part design workbench. It comprises of tools like pad, pocket, rib, slot, shaft, groove, hole, multi-sections solid etc. Each of these is a way to add / remove material in a certain way. Also, these have different requirements for sketches. Some of these are used for adding material while other are used for removing material. For example, pad, rib, shaft and multi-sections solid are used for adding material while hole, pocket, groove etc. are used for removing material.