Depends what you're interested in comparing. CATIA is closed source, BRL-CAD is open source. CATIA was is geared towards product lifecycle manufacturing, BRL-CAD is geared towards ballistic analyses. CATIA has the massive arm of Dassault Systemes behind them, BRL-CAD has the backing of the open source community and ARL. BRL-CAD happens to be about about twenty thousand dollars cheaper per seat than a CATIA seat license.
Both are solid modelers with strengths/weaknesses on the modeling and analysis side. Best to give it a try and see if it fits your needs.. or ask a more specific question. ;-)
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The intent actually wasn't to say that CATIA *is* a lifecycle manufacturing product but that it's primarly user market is for/towards people that are in the manufacturing business. I wasn't confusing it with Enovia, that indeed is a product lifecycle tool.
It's also not strictly or absolutely true, of course, that CATIA is only used in manufacturing -- there are plenty of people that use CATIA for non-manufacturing purposes including simulation. Their biggest bread makers are, however, folks somewhere in a manufacturing lifecycle business process (e.g. modeling cars, airplanes, etc).
Similarly BRL-CAD is also 3D modeling (though I can't say "purely" since it does much more, as does CATIA), but the primary (current) user base uses it for/towards ballistic analyses. This similarly isn't to say that BRL-CAD is a ballistic analysis code itself -- it's used by many ballistic analysis codes.
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I guess I was not specific enough when I said CATIA was 3D modelling.
CATIA's scope is all matters of shape definition facilities for solid object properties analysis (CAE, FEA) and behaviour, including kinematics (i.e. simulation of robotic manufacturing line motion for programming assembly line robots).
(I don't want to belabour the point, only to clarify for others.)
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How does brlcad compare to CATIA?
Thanks in advance,
Chris
Depends what you're interested in comparing. CATIA is closed source, BRL-CAD is open source. CATIA was is geared towards product lifecycle manufacturing, BRL-CAD is geared towards ballistic analyses. CATIA has the massive arm of Dassault Systemes behind them, BRL-CAD has the backing of the open source community and ARL. BRL-CAD happens to be about about twenty thousand dollars cheaper per seat than a CATIA seat license.
Both are solid modelers with strengths/weaknesses on the modeling and analysis side. Best to give it a try and see if it fits your needs.. or ask a more specific question. ;-)
To clarify, CATIA is not product lifecycle manufacturing. It is purely 3D modelling. You have inadvently confused it with the Enovia PLM tool.
The intent actually wasn't to say that CATIA *is* a lifecycle manufacturing product but that it's primarly user market is for/towards people that are in the manufacturing business. I wasn't confusing it with Enovia, that indeed is a product lifecycle tool.
It's also not strictly or absolutely true, of course, that CATIA is only used in manufacturing -- there are plenty of people that use CATIA for non-manufacturing purposes including simulation. Their biggest bread makers are, however, folks somewhere in a manufacturing lifecycle business process (e.g. modeling cars, airplanes, etc).
Similarly BRL-CAD is also 3D modeling (though I can't say "purely" since it does much more, as does CATIA), but the primary (current) user base uses it for/towards ballistic analyses. This similarly isn't to say that BRL-CAD is a ballistic analysis code itself -- it's used by many ballistic analysis codes.
I guess I was not specific enough when I said CATIA was 3D modelling.
CATIA's scope is all matters of shape definition facilities for solid object properties analysis (CAE, FEA) and behaviour, including kinematics (i.e. simulation of robotic manufacturing line motion for programming assembly line robots).
(I don't want to belabour the point, only to clarify for others.)