Managing CATIA Version 4 Models, PROJECT Files and
Library Objects in CATIA Version 5

  To ensure CATIA Version 4 > CATIA Version 5 interoperability, CATIA Version 5 provides the CATIA Site Navigator allowing you to read, in a CATIA Version 5 session, CATIA Version 4 models on both Windows and UNIX and both PROJECT files and library objects on UNIX.

Any geometric element (whether the model involved has an internalized PROJECT file or is linked to an external PROJECT file) can be read and copied to a CATIA Version 5 document.

In a CATIA Version 5 session, CATIA Version 4 models can be displayed on both Windows and UNIX and library objects can be displayed on UNIX. Basic read-only operations can then be performed, such as:

  • displaying and selecting geometric elements and workspaces, in the geometry area and/or the specification tree (except for the HLR mode)
  • displaying graphic properties (color, show/hide, layers, filters, pick/no pick)
  • zooming, rotating and panning
  • printing (except for the HLR mode)
  • applying, creating, deleting, and modifying layer filters
  • verifying the geometry (and, in the case of exact solids, the specifications) of one or more Version 4 elements prior to copy-pasting it into a CATIA Version 5 workbench.
In CATIA Version 5, you cannot edit CATIA Version 4 models or library objects but you can paste all or part of a model or library object into a CATIA Version 5 document and then edit it. Once this has been done, it is of course no longer a Version 4 model, but a CATIA Version 5 document.