BAD HABIT IN CATIA 'never-do' list

1. Never make a plane from a solid face! Reason being is that if the solid changes, it can affect the
plane which can snowball into a huge mess of errors.
2. (for managers) Never purchase Catia, and expect to implement it, and get full functionality, without
TRAINING, and I mean professional training.
3. Never make geometry without knowing what the In Work object is.
4. Never open a R18 file in R19, and accidently save it.
5. Never use File + save + Propagate directory, as a substitute for file and directory structure
management.
6. Never alter the Customer model
7. Don't do fixed bid work for less than the going contract hourly rate. To do so is just plain self
torture.
8. Never do fixed bid NC programming
9. If you ignore #8 .....Never do fixed bid NC programming, for an new customer, without a signed off
preplan.
10. Never Mix hybrid and .........
11. Never trust that hotfix/SP will fix the problem you reported on first round without any additional
problems...
12. Leave fillets out of sketches and make them as dress-up features operations except, curves that
define major features of the design should be included in the sketch.
13. Never release a service pack, to the population, before a major test regiment
14. Never load a service pack, before a major deadline.
15. Never skip going to a COE annual Conference
16. Never do nothing but whine and complain about CATIA. Sure it's fun to poke at it, and have a good
laugh at DS's expense. The reality is, as Roger says: ::CATIA keeps getting better all the time"
17. Never duplicate geometry within a sketch. Keep sketches simple, and only define a single profile.
Use Pattern to duplicate the profile's feature
18. Never link to anything that isn't published
19. Never use Faces, Edges, or Vertices to create new geometry. You can use the, but always create an

EXTRACT element first.

20. Never exit a sketch unless everything is fully constrained. (never exit if geometry is white everything should be green or yellow)
21. Never exit a sketch without first doing a sketch analysis.
22. Avoid using Red. Catia uses Red to warn. It can become confusing.
23. Don't use translate/rotate/scale in normal design. They are useful if you get data from other CAD,
but other changes should happen with changes of part specification, not by adding these commands.
24. Don't try to do everything in one part like V4. Learn Products and do your work in your own
CATPart.
25. Don't use the V4 method part modeling; don't make a body and pad of every solid feature and
boolean Add or Remove the body to the part. V5 features are automatically added or removed, making
boolean operations unnecessary for basic part design. Use boolean operations only for grouping and
special situations.
26. Don't turn on the Datum mode when making surfaces, to create isolated surfaces like in V4. Keep
the parent/child relationships to make it easy to modify surface models.
27. Don't blindly create all sketches as positioned just because you heard it was better. If you do create
positioned sketches, make sure you position them properly. Positioned sketches are extremely useful
but aren't required in a lot of situations. (Floating sketches have their own set of issues.)
28. Use "Positioned Sketch"
29. In general: The rule of one Physical Part = one CATIA Part. Body is not Part, it's Body. (Exceptions:
e.g.: Over-molded parts.)
30. If you create Contextually linked part (part with contextual links) Position the part to common
origin. Typical way of getting an assembly level update cycle is:
Part is positioned with constraints that create a Positional link between geometry of this part & other
parts
Part has contextual links that affect to this very same geometry
easily there is a conflict of geometry position versus geometry shape... Update cycle or impossible to
update.
If you create contextually linked part, just freeze it to space with Fix or position it with constraints
from Basic planes.
31. When creating external references or internal references be thoughtful of how they are affected by
changes. Think; "how flexible is this reference?" It's not always easy and sometimes requires trial and
error.
32. Profile sketches should be limited to lines and as few curves as necessary to describe the geometry.

33. Learn how to build a well named / organized tree and file system. It might seem trivial on small
jobs, but on the big ones it becomes an absolute necessity.
34. When creating assemblies with several constraints, LABEL THEM so you know what you're looking at
when one of them breaks or fails. Do it when you create the constraint.
35. Always comment actions/knowledgeware scripts/VB scripts so you know what you did.
36. Learn and understand Links
37. Learn and understand Parameters
38. Learn and understand PowerCopies
39. Learn When and Why to use Boolean Operations. They aren't always required, but they are OK to
use when they are required. If you have to go out of your way to avoid them, then use them. KISS Keep It Simple, S(illy)
40. Try to limit the number of items that you project or intersect into a sketch (use edges). If you do
create use edges, make sure to select the item ONLY from the tree. If you select the item by picking
the 3D geometry, the use edge will always use a BREP, which can be unstable on future updates.
41. Check and double check your CATSettings. Understand them.