Catia v4 file types

CATIA icon size: px x px. Note: You can click on any file extension link from the list below, to view its detailed information.

The list of extensions used or otherwise associated with the application may not be complete, because many common file extensions on our website, such as jpg pictures or txt text files , can be opened by a large number of applications, or are too general file format. However most, if not all directly associated file extensions should be listed with its appropriate program. Although its likely, that some file extensions may be missing from the list of associated file extensions with the application, yet they can be opened, be part of, or otherwise be associated with the program.

If you encounter any problems loading a 3D model then please forward a problem report to support okino. If the file extension ends in ". CATProduct " or ". The session file contains reference to the.

The session file can be saved using 4 options:. Save references only 2. Save copies of modified data 3. Save copies of all data 4. Save reference and update original data. Saving a session file inside CATIA using options 1 or 4 produces 1 session file only that has references to the model files of the session. Option 2 and 3 creates some additional session files that are actually modified model files. If this option is enabled then the imported geometry parts the "bodies" will be parented to the layer grouping names specified in the input file.

If the input file does not contain any layering or assembly information then no grouping will be performed. CATIA v4 files have layers numbered from 1 to If you wish to exclude one or more layers from being imported then click on the "Edit" button beside the drop-down combo box. This will pop up the following dialog box:. The numbers on the left side are the layers which were found in the source CATIA file after the file is scanned and which will be imported.

The numbers on the right side are the layers which you wish to exclude ignore during the import process. To move layers between each listbox, do an extended listbox selection then press the "Add" or "Remove" buttons. This is the default, since it makes sense that the 'layers to ignore' should be reset to empty whenever you import a new file.

If you would like the 'Ignored Layers' listbox to remain unchanged as you select new and different CATIA files then keep this checkbox unchecked. If the "Import Active Layer Only" checkbox is enabled then the exclusion list is ignored, and only the entities which reside on the "currently active CATIA v4 layer" are imported. If this checkbox is enabled then a healing algorithm will be enabled on the imported data to try and keep all entities as valid "solids".

If this checkbox is enabled then items which are marked as being "hidden" are not imported. If this checkbox is enabled then the importer will check all the spline surfaces in the model and will attempt to correct them by using spline re-surfacing Algorithms. If this checkbox is enabled then "free surfaces" will be imported. Some models may contain free surfaces that do not need to be translated.

Disabling this checkbox can help filter out unwanted construction geometry. If this checkbox is disabled then all entities will be imported. If this checkbox is enabled then only the "master" workspace will be imported default.

If disabled, all workspaces will be imported. CATIA files store polynomial definitions of surfaces as well as analytic definitions. This option can be used to set which definition to be used for translation.

If this checkbox is enabled the default then the analytic definition will be used to import the surface. If this checkbox is disabled then the polynomial definition will be used. If this checkbox is enabled then the importer will make checks to resolve other extra root entities the child surface or a parent curve will be imported and set as the 'root'.

The extra root entities are of type "curve parent" and "child surface" so if a curve is filtered out then the corresponding surface is also filtered out too. This enables an internal importer optimization which allows faster import of dittos when one copy is instanced or referenced many times in the CATIA v4 file.

If this option is enabled then materials will be allowed to be assigned at the "face" BREP object level. BREP objects are defined as bodies, shells and faces. If you import a model and find that some materials are missing then most probably they have been assigned at the lower level "face" level, in which case you will want to enable this option.

This option is enabled by default. If this checkbox is enabled then the import converter will print out the number of objects, polygons, normals, texture coordinates, tangent vectors and surfaces that were parsed from the input file. A body can be considered as an 3D object, and the faces can be considered at the sub-parts of the object. This option will create the least number of geometry items after import. If you feel that the model is still imported as "too many parts" then enable the "Optimize Object Count" checkbox.

This may result in better, crack-free tessellations. This is identical to the previous option above, except that the tessellation is applied to each individual face of the model and not to the body. After all the faces of the body are tessellated then they are combined back together into a single polygonal object. It will tend to create a large number of child objects in the final scene.

Choosing this option will provide the ultimate control over assigning materials to each face part of the BREP model, as well as allowing you to manipulate each face part. Basically this option will separate the Face parts based on the shell they are associated with in the Body part. Some people find this convenient if they model their parts based on "shells". By enabling this "Optimize Object Count" checkbox a series of algorithms will be invoked to combine all sub-parts contained within grouping nodes under the yellow folder shown above into respective single objects.

In other words, the hundreds of sub-parts contained within grouping nodes will be reduced to single parts within each grouping node. In addition, once all the parts have been combined together, redundant grouping and hierarchy nodes will be deleted or merged.

This situation arises when Dittos of the same Workspace belong to different parent Workspaces see note 6 in Notes for Alias entities in table 2 above.

Only the trimmed surface node can have a name, and this is given the name of the underlying CATIA surface being trimmed. As with names, the layer number becomes an attribute of CAI geometric entities and Dittos. The layer name and other Alias Layer attributes are not exported. All layers created by the CAI import process are sorted in the layer bar by ascending number. In Alias, a geometric object and all of its ancestors in the dag hierarchy must be in the same layer.

If you change the layer assignment of an Alias Instance that was created from a CAI Ditto, you will change the layer assignment of all the geometric entities being instanced to this new layer number within Alias. This RGB color is used to create a simple shader that is assigned to the associated Alias object that is created, unless the object is a curve.

Layer colors are not transferred explicitly via the CAI format. However, layer colors are assigned to layers created as a result of CAI import by one of two possible methods. In the first method the default a created layer is assigned one of the 15 available colors based on the remainder of the layer number divided by This cycles through the available Alias layer colors as the layer number increases.

When the Alias CAI import process has access to this default layer color assignment, it assigns a color to a newly created Alias layer that closely matches the color for that layer number in the table. When exporting the model from Alias, you must ensure that the geometry is built to the correct tolerance and that it can also be stitched. The stitching process in Alias identifies gaps between surfaces so that you can repair the appropriate geometry before writing the file out to CATIA.