Saving a CATIA V5 Catalog in ENOVIA LCA

Catalogs enable to store and classify objects, each with its own specific characteristics (such as shape, color, size, diameter, length, standard, etc.) so that they can be retrieved fast and easily.

This task explains how to save in ENOVIA LCA a CATIA V5 catalog containing a part family with a design table.

For this scenario, it is recommended to resolve all the part family components (i.e. generate the .CATPart document(s) referred to by the part family or the part family component).
 

For detailed information on managing catalogs in ENOVIA LCA, please refer to the Catalog Management User's Guide on the ENOVIA V5 VPM/LCA Documentation CD-ROM.

  1. In CATIA V5, select Start -> Infrastructure -> Catalog Editor.

  2. Open a catalog by selecting File -> Open... from the menu bar. 

  3. Right-click one of the catalog components and select Definition... then, click the Preview tab to check that the component preview is stored in the catalog.

If the preview is not stored in your catalog, it will be lost when editing in CATIA V5 the catalog saved in ENOVIA LCA.

The next step is to save your catalog in ENOVIA LCA.

  1. Click the Set PDM Properties icon from the ENOVIA LCA toolbar to access the following dialog box:

  2. Choose "ENOVIA5" in the Destination PDM drop-down list then specify the storage mode:

  • Document kept in vault
    • Publications Exposed: both Product and Part document files are saved in the vault. The catalog structure is not saved in ENOVIA LCA. This mode is also known as the Workpackage mode.
      When working with part families with design tables, it is recommended to use this mode.
       

      Note that you can also click the Save data in ENOVIA LCA Server... icon from the ENOVIA LCA toolbar:

      As you can see it in the above capture, this dialog box lets you save your documents in "Publications Exposed" mode only.

      For detailed information on this dialog box, refer to "Saving an ENOVIA LCA Document from CATIA V5" in the Version 5 - ENOVIA/CATIA Interoperability User's Guide.
 

Catalog saved in Workpackage mode (Publications Exposed-Document kept)
 

  1. If you have accessed the Set PDM Properties dialog box, check that the "Publications Exposed" option is activated then click OK to validate.
    If you have accessed the Save in ENOVIA V5 dialog box, you just need to click OK.

A progress bar is displayed to let you follow the save process.

If two documents with the same name exist, a warning message will appear. In that case, close the warning dialog box then click the Save in ENOVIA LCA icon once again: the files will be automatically renamed with the extension [n] (where "n" is a number incremented for each document).

The save result is then displayed under the Reference tab in the Catalog Editor as shown below:

Now, you need to connect to ENOVIA LCA then search for the catalog you saved in the previous steps.

  1. In your CATIA V5 session, click the Connect to ENOVIA LCA icon in the ENOVIALCA toolbar.

A logon window appears: enter the necessary data (user, password, etc.) then click Logon.

  1. Once you are connected to ENOVIA LCA, click the icon.

  2. In ENOVIA Home, click Content Management, double-click Document Management then click Cancel in the dialog box that opens. The following window is displayed:

  1. Click the icon Open icon (or the Ctrl + O keyboard shortcut).

  2. In the Search for: field, select "Document File" then in the Extension column, enter "Catalog".

  3. Click the Search button to run the query. The result of your query will be displayed in the bottom part of the search dialog box:

  4. Select the catalog in the list of result then click Add. A node named "CatalogDocument" is added to "Documents" in the Web Tree:

  5. Right-clicking "CatalogDocument" lets you carry out the following operations:

  • Send To -> CATIA V5 Catalog Browser: this command enables you to browse your catalog using the catalog browser.

Note: before sending your catalog to the Catalog Browser, check that a product is open in your CATIA V5 session, otherwise the catalog will open in the Catalog Editor.

For detailed information on the Catalog Browser, refer to "Browsing a Catalog Using the Catalog Browser" in the CATIA Version 5 - Component Catalog Editor User's Guide.

  • Show -> Iterations: lets you follow the life cycle of your catalog document. Selecting an iteration from the list lets you know what kind of action has been performed on your catalog, each action corresponding to one iteration.

In the example below, the catalog document has three iterations:

The following three iterations reflect the three actions that have been performed on the catalog:

  • first, one chapter of the catalog has been modified,
  • the second iteration corresponds to the update of the documents pointed to by the catalog,
  • the third iteration corresponds to the design modification of a catalog component.

Among your list of iterations, you can set one of them as "preferred" (i.e. "active") by selecting it from the list then choosing the "Set Preferred" command. In our example, Iteration.3 is the preferred one (identified by a different symbol in the tree).
By default, the active iteration is the most recent one.

  • Send To -> CATIA V5 Catalog Editor: this command lets you send your catalog to CATIA V5 in order to modify it. For instance, let's suppose you want to update a part family with a design table (still in Workpackage mode, of course):
    • once your catalog has been sent to CATIA V5, select the Edit -> Links... command,
    • select the referenced part to be to modified then click the Open button,
    • perform the necessary modifications on the part or on the design table (in that case, the design table must stored in the part),
    • close the part then go back to the Catalog Editor,
    • re-select the Edit -> Links... command,
    • select the modified part then click the Synchronize button to synchronize the link with the reference part,
    • click the Save in ENOVIA LCA icon to save the modified catalog document in the ENOVIA LCA database: you will see that the Save panel will gray the "Publications Exposed" and the "Structure Exposed" modes.
      This means that the modified catalog will be saved in the same mode as it was originally saved ("Publications Exposed" in our example).
      Moreover, only the new or updated documents will be displayed in the list of documents to be saved.
    • click OK to save your catalog document. A new iteration will be created under the CatalogDocument node.
  Notes:
  • when working with catalogs containing a large amount of components, we recommend that you use one of the two methods below. You can either:
    • store in ENOVIA LCA the catalog created in CATIA V5, send it from ENOVIA LCA to CATIA V5 then add new parts (i.e. add the missing components that have not been stored in ENOVIA LCA) before saving it again in ENOVIA LCA. You can repeat this process as many times as necessary until your catalog is complete
    • split your catalog into several smaller catalogs