Logging in to CATIA as an Admin to revise CATIA Standards

The CATIA V5 Standards define default values for the element properties within CATIA. Although CATIA can be used out of the box with the Standards defined by Dassault Systèmes, many companies do customize these Standards to meet their needs and the needs of their suppliers. Because of this, it is important to understand the CATIA V5 Standards and how to manage them.

There are two types of Standards available with CATIA V5. The first type is the Default Standards, which are provided by Dassault Systèmes. These files are stored in the location defined by the environment variable CATDefaultCollectionStandard. The default location of the default Standards is set by Dassault Systèmes to be the C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\B29\win_b64\resources\standard

Figure 1 shows an example for the default Windows folder for a Windows 64-bit installation.

Figure 1: 

The second type of Standards available is the user Standards, which are also known as the Customized Standards. These Standards are created and managed by the CATIA V5 Administrator. They are stored in the locations defined by the environment variables CATReferenceSettingPath and CATCollectionStandard. By default, values for these environment variables are not defined, as shown in Figure 1.

Your paths will look similar to these, and you will be adding these to enable customization:

C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\B29

C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\B29\win_b64\resources\standard

Customizing the CATIA V5 Standards

In order to modify the CATIA V5 Standards, four steps must be taken. The first step is to define the environment variables needed to edit the Standards. After these variables are defined, then their supporting directory structure needs to be created. Once these first two steps are done, the Standard Definitions must be accessed in CATIA V5 admin mode. Finally, the default Standards must be selected, modified, and saved in the appropriate customized Standards directory.

1. To be able to access this Environment Editor, you must open it as an Administrator:

From the Start menu, right mouse click on Environment Editor, select More and Run as Administrator, as shown in Figure 2. The Environment Editor from Figure 1 will open up:

Figure 2:

2. The two environment variables that must be set up in the CATIA Environment Editor: CATCollectionStandard and CATReferenceSettingPath.

The CATReferenceSettingPath variable defines the directory that stores the Administrators CATSettings files that are created when modifying CATIA settings in admin mode. This is also the location for the storage of the locked CATSettings.

 Navigate to the following locations within your C: drive, and copy the paths in Figures 3 and 4:

Figure 3:

Figure 4: 

You will then Right click on the two different locations in the environment Editor in Figure 5, select Edit Variable, and paste the 2 addresses in their respective locations as shown in Figure 5. Right click near the location noted in the bottom right, and select Save:

Figure 5:

Select Yes when this message pops up:

3. Access of Standard Definitions in CATIA V5 admin mode:

Log into CATIA and access the Standard Definitions using Tools - Standards. Because you did not log into CATIA in admin mode, you will only be able to view the Standards. The Standard values are not editable (greyed out) and the Save as New icon is not selectable As New icon is not selectable. This is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 - Standard Definition Window - View Mode

For example, when you open a new drawing in CATIA, and attempt to make a drawing of a part, even if it is a metric part, the Standard Dimensioning will be in Feet-Inches. You would have to revise each dimension to Metric as you created them, as shown in Figure 7. Here’s how to revise that standard setting so your drawings will now create Metric dimensions.

Figure 7:

How to login to CATIA via admin mode:

Close any CATIA sessions.

Then open a Command Prompt window as shown in Figure 8, select Run as administrator:

Figure 8: 

Change the directory by typing in cd C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\B29\win_b64\code\bin

Then type in cnext -admin at the end of the next line in Figure 9:

Figure 9: 

A new CATIA session will open in Administration Mode, as shown in Figure 10. Select OK:

Figure 10: 

Select Tools: Standards as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11:

4. To switch the standard to Metric, you will want to revise the following standards as shown in Figure 12, then select OK.

All future drawings will then be dimensioned in Metric. ANSI is used for demonstration purposes only:

Figure 12:

• Close the CATIA Administration session. Close then Restart CATIA and your Standards are now set to your preferences, as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13:

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