MD 2023-02-03

CATIA Creative Design & Styling - User Community

We're back with our next set of PPX Tips & Tricks! Our goal is to share some of the shortcuts and helpful hints when creating design project presentations with CATIA Product Perception Experience.

Multiple variants from a multi-selection

Press Ctrl and click the [+] button of a variant line to create one variant for each selected object. For example, with a car which has 5 different hood shapes, multi-select them in the 3D or in the Project Tree, then press Ctrl and click the [+] button of a Product variant line to create 5 individual variants, one for each hood alternative.
This works with all actor-based variants: Product, Position, Material, Human and Physics Simulation Result. And it's new since R2022x HF1 (FD01).

Save As... your design presentation

Want to copy your current presentation before modifying it? Like with most data types, rename it then press Ctrl+Shift+S to launch the command Save with Options. Then select the first line and click the Save as New icon. Optionally You can enter a duplication string that will be added to the data name.

Hide the "new variant line" icons

The line of icons at the bottom of each variant panels can be hidden. Press Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Preferences dialog directly on the app page. And in the Panels section, turn off the option "Show the new line creation control on the variant panel". The line is removed from the all the panels but the commands can still be found from the context menu.

Invisible objects as variant triggers

Invisible objects can also be used as trigger objects. To do so: create a primitive, place it and resize it, define it as a trigger, and finally, using the Properties Panel, set its Transparency to 0. Do not hide it (its Visible property must still be checked).

Of course, the Highlight Triggers command will still highlight them when you need to remember where such objects are.

I used suck trick a few times, but I'm curious to know if you ever faced a use case where such tips would have been useful ;)

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