Product Origin
Product Origin
(OP)
OK, this is really pissing me off. How in the hell do you define the origin of a product?
The one thing that drives me f'n crazy about catia is that the products don't have a coordinate system.
I find myself adding an empty part to all of my assemblies just so I have a point of reference.
I can go to a bunch of trouble with an assembly and then when I add it to another assembly, it never comes in in the right god damn place.
Errrrrr!! Anyway, if anyone could shed some light I would appreciate it.
The one thing that drives me f'n crazy about catia is that the products don't have a coordinate system.
I find myself adding an empty part to all of my assemblies just so I have a point of reference.
I can go to a bunch of trouble with an assembly and then when I add it to another assembly, it never comes in in the right god damn place.
Errrrrr!! Anyway, if anyone could shed some light I would appreciate it.





RE: Product Origin
If I'm not mistaking the default origin of an assembly is the axis system of the first part that you put in.
P.S.: It all depends on how you start building the parts within the assemblies in the first place. That's what's nice about Catia you have full control for what happens to the relations between parts, assemblies, sub-assemblies.
RE: Product Origin
If you don't : right click the Compass and select the option 'snap to selected element' then select you product in the tree, the compass will move to the origin of the product and eventually give you the coordinate // root level product.
Be careful about the active level when you move parts...
indocti discant et ament meminisse periti
RE: Product Origin
You sound like most of the frustrated, ex-Unigraphics users I know. You just need to re-adjust your thinking.
It is not necessary, nor even desirable, to have a specific coordinate system in a CatProduct. All of your parts in a product are positioned relative to each other using constraints. A specific coordinate system is not required in a product because each product sub-assy will be positioned at its next assembly.
The beauty of using constraints is that changes to the individual part models will produce automatic updates in the next assemblies if the constraints are created thoughtfully.
Good luck.
Terry
RE: Product Origin
It is easy to define the origin of the product by creating a reference CATPart as the first item in your tree. Since the XYZ planes form the global axis, anything constrained (or created in context) relative to this geometry will be based around the origin. If you want parts to fall into place without a lot of jockeying, this is the simplest way to accomplish it.
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Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog
RE: Product Origin
First of all I'll say that sometimes I work with imported, complex, junk parts that have been converted god knows how many times before I get them and are just a MESS in the tree.
I have been creating "Reference" parts to define the origin but I think what I did was add the parts and when I realized the origin was F'd up, I added the reference part in last. I tried re-organizing it to the top of the tree and that didn't work.
So would I have to remove (or cut/paste) everything else in the tree to establish the reference part as the default origin for the product?
lol not Unigraphics (thank god, I hear it was a NIGHTMARE), I was on ProE before the big change ;)
Again, thanks for the help guys..... this stuff gets TURBO frustrating.
RE: Product Origin
The main reason many consider Unigraphics so difficult is because there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. It is not structured so that you must follow a set procedure to achieve anything.
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Product Origin
Not that true, really. In fact, Catia is one of the most open structured CAD systems available. (more so, IMO than any NX product)
Edit -> Components -> Graph Tree Reordering
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Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog
RE: Product Origin
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Product Origin