Overview

This book is intended for the user who needs to become quickly familiar with Functional Molded Part product.

This overview provides the following information:

Functional Molded Part in a Nutshell

CATIA Functional Molded Part offers a new approach to developing 3D digital models, called "functional modeling." The objective of functional modeling is to enable product designers to focus on the functional goals and design constraints of their product. Capturing this information in the product model provides the information from which geometric form can be derived through the combination of behavioral features and a minimum of geometric construction. The end result is a significant reduction in the effort required to generate the 3D model by allowing more time for designers to focus on engineering issues, exploring alternative design approaches, and optimizing their design.

CATIA Functional Molded Part provides tools to create volumes and features that contain inherent behaviors and which interact. The behaviors capture different design functions, such as adding material, subtracting material, or protecting space. Because they contain inherent behaviors and they interact, they are called "functional volumes" and "functional features."

As a scalable product, Functional Molded Part can be used in cooperation with other current or future companion products such as Assembly Design and Generative Drafting.

Before Reading this Guide
Before reading this guide, you should be familiar with basic Version 5 concepts such as document windows, standard and view toolbars. Therefore, we recommend that you read the Infrastructure User's Guide that describes generic capabilities common to all Version 5 products. It also describes the general layout of V5 and the interoperability between workbenches.

You may also like to read the following complementary product guides:
  • Part Design User's Guide: explains how to create parts.
  • Sketcher User's Guide: explains how to sketch 2D elements.
  • Wireframe and Surface User's Guide: explains how to create wireframe geometry and surfaces.

Getting the Most out of this Guide
The Functional Molded Part User's Guide has been designed for users new to the application.

To get the most out of this guide, we suggest you start reading and performing the step-by-step tutorial Getting Started that provides an overview of what can be done with key functions.

Once you have finished, you should move on to the next sections describing and illustrating each functionality. You can also take a look at the sections describing the Functional Molded Part Workbench at the end of the guide.

Accessing Sample Documents
To perform the scenarios, you will be using sample documents contained in the online/fm1ug/samples folder.

When samples belong to capabilities common to different products, those samples will be found in the online/cfyug/samples folder.

For more information on accessing sample documents, refer to Accessing Sample Documents in the Infrastructure User's Guide.

Helping pictures in all Functional Features

There are Helper pictures you can access in all Functional Feature dialogs. The Helper pictures guide you to build a feature easier. For more information, please refer to Recommendations page.

Conventions Used in this Guide
To learn more about the conventions used in this guide, refer to the Conventions section.