Catia V5 Preferences

This section determines which surfaces, meshes, curves, and polylines are imported.

• Surfaces - Specifies which surfaces are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No surfaces are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible surfaces are imported.

  • Import all - All surfaces, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

• Meshes - Specifies which meshes are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No meshes are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible meshes are imported.

  • Import all - All meshes, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

• Curves and Polygon Lines - Specifies which curves and polylines are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No curves and polylines are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible curves and polylines are imported.

  • Import all - All curves and polylines, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

• Tessellation Quality - Sets the level of tessellation applied, with Course being the lowest tessellation and least memory intensive to High or Custom (depending on the settings) being the highest quality and most intensive.

• Chord Deviation - Sets the tolerance of the distance from the NURBS surface to the tessellated surface in mm. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Normal Tolerance - Sets the normal tolerance of adjacent triangles in degrees. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Max Chord Length - Sets the maximum length of a triangle edge in mm. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Enable Stitching - Enables stitching of adjacent edges.

• Stitching Tolerance - Sets the tolerance in mm where two adjacent edges are considered to be touching and where they should be stitched together.

• Keep Source Data - Sets the default behavior to keep NURBS data instead of deleting it. This option will increase memory usage. When disabled, the source data is removed during import.

• Unify Surface Normals - Sets the default behavior to ensure all surface normals point in the same direction (out or in). Merges all tessellated surfaces into one (stitched) mesh during import, when enabled. When disabled, surface normals are not changed during import.

• Merge Geometries - Sets the default behavior to merge the geometries to create one single (stitched) mesh during import, when enabled, since a single shell can have many NURBS surfaces.

• Create Groups for Layers - Sets the default behavior to create layer groups during import for items that were originally organized in layers (for example, in Autodesk Alias). Otherwise, the objects are all placed under the same parent node.

• Remove Empty Groups - Sets the default behavior to remove all empty (unnecessary) groups in your file during import.

• Unshare Nodes - Sets the default behavior for the unsharing of nodes. When enabled, shared node instances, used to save memory, are removed so that nodes exist independently. When disabled, there is no change to shared nodes during import.

• Flush Transformation - Moves the transformation data of the scenegraph hierarchy to the vertices rather than in higher-level group nodes. In other words, if you have a hierarchy of transformation parent nodes of a geometry node, all of them are baked into one single matrix within the geometry; the original information is lost. You would want to avoid this, for example, for animating wheels on a moving car.

This section determines which file-specific options are enabled during import.

• Import Group Materials - Doesn't create additional MaterialGroup nodes for part files, assemblies, or instances, and simple discards the materials, when disabled. For some Inventor workflows, you may want this enabled to create these MaterialGroup nodes.

• Import Associative Meshes - Imports data associated with your meshes, rather than excluding it.

• Import Invisible Instances - Toggles the import of invisible instances on or off. Geometry is now imported when the invisible (hidden) instance option is enabled, rather than excluded.

• Import Coordinate Systems - Toggles the import of the Axis Systems from CATIA into VRED. Since CATIA files can have multiple coordinate systems, VRED see these, import them, and create transformation groups with a coordinate cross for a better representation in the viewport.

  Note:

  There is also an import option that appears when importing a CATIA file into VRED.

• Import Metadata - Sets the default behavior to import the metadata, instead of excluding it.

• Import Sub-Referenced Files - Toggles the import parts referenced by an assembly on or off. When enabled, sub-reference files are imported into VRED. This is enabled by default, as it is required then working with assemblies.

• Merge Sub-Reference Materials - Controls how duplicate materials are handled when importing CAD assemblies and PLMXML files. When disabled, duplicate materials will NOT be merged. If an identical material is referenced by sub-referenced files, an additional instance of the material is created for every occurrence of the material in the import. This option is enabled by default.

• Importer - Choose one of the following methods as the default used for importing Catia V5 files. There should be no differences in tessellation quality, structure, material import, or naming conventions between these methods.

  • Lightweight - The faster default method for importing V5 files, which skips several operations in ATF that are not required to translate CAD data to VRED.

  • Legacy - The old method for importing V5 files, which is a fallback if issues arise using the Lightweight method.