Catia Imagine and Shape

Catia has a product called Imagine and Shape that sounds like a product I would like to work with. Maybe some of you have some functional experience with this and can comment on its merits, up or down. This product has been around for what looks to be about two years, based on what I’ve read about it.

Imagine and Shape is essentially a subdivision modeler that is somehow able to share meaningful data with engineering and manufacturing applications in Catia such as Part Design and Generative Shape Design. I’m not positive about this, but I take all of that to mean that it is somehow able to generate nurbs surfaces from the mesh data. The technique used to control shapes would take some getting used to, but it is much faster than the surface modeling that SolidWorks users are used to. You start from a shape primative, and tug and pull on a control frame much like the control polygon available to edit splines in SolidWorks. There is a bit of number tweeking to make transitions smooth or sharp. Other wise, this looks like a minimal interface, and a fast technique. It looks like there are also some capabilities for ribbing, bosses and functional plastic features inherited from ImpactXoft.

It is sometimes tempting to compare this type of concept modeler to Cosmic Blobs, but I don’t think that applies in this case. Imagine and Shape is not driven by dimensions, but it does allow you to get more precise shapes than Cosmic Blobs, or some of the other “blob” concept modelers I’ve mentioned here like Shape Shop, Shark!, Â MoI, and so on. I’m sure it costs a fair bit more than any of those as well.

I keep hoping for a complex shape concept modeler to rescue me from SolidWorks. This one has been available for a couple of years, but it hasn’t seen much popularity with SolidWorks users. A few unknowns still exist around Imagine and Shape, but it at least does seem to do what I expect a complex shape concept modeler to do. How well it communicates with nurbs modelers will be the real test.

Here are some additional links if you want to read more about Imagine and Shape.

http://www.3ds.com/fileadmin/industrysolutions/imagine/application.html
http://66.195.41.10/Articles/Cover-Story/CATIA-V5R17-200705251905.html

Catia Live Shape / 3Dvia Shape

 Catia Imagine and Shape is not to be confused with a product that I think has changed names. It appears that Catia Live Shape has been renamed to 3Dvia Shape. 3Dvia Shape is a free Sketchup-like product. It is primarily for boxy simple modeling jobs. Since it is named with the 3Dvia first name, I’m guessing that it exists to supplement building simple geometries for 3D environments.

If you follow the Catia website and marketing materials at all, you know that Catia is deeply into the concept of 3d “worlds”. It’s a little creepy sometimes with the 3D mannequins, but I can see how a whole new 3D industry is growing out of the “life-like” simulation centered around transportation markets (planes/trains/automobiles) where Catia lives. If CAD can help you visualize interior spaces like a human, then it’s doing its job. Visualizing products that you can hold in your hand is handled nicely by the kind of viz tools that SW has, but you need something different for the larger scale of interior spaces for people.

Anyway, cool stuff. Just don’t confuse Live Shape / 3Dvia Shape with Imagine and Shape.