Welcome to 3DEXPERIENCE Technical Practices!
In this section, you will explore a use case demonstrating how to save modules with catalog.
| As modular design practices grow, modules saved without a structured classification system become increasingly difficult to discover. Designers cannot filter by function, product line, or standard type, often rebuilding solutions that already exist. Saving a module to a Catalog in CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE registers it under a structured classification path, making it discoverable, retrievable, and reusable at the organizational level across any project, site, or product line. |
| Saving a module in a catalog in CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE deposits a validated, fully defined module into a structured, classification-based repository accessible organization-wide. Modules are organized under a defined hierarchy of categories, making them filterable and discoverable by function, product type, or standard. When instantiated from a catalog, the module’s interface contract automatically adapts to the new context without requiring manual modification. |
| The Modules & Interfaces feature is available if you have one of the following Roles: |
Mechanical Designers, Conceptual Designers, Mechanical Surface Designers |
| Know more about Catalog |
CatalogA structured collection of standard or reusable components in CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE that enables designers to organize, manage, and insert design assets into any project via the Catalog Browser. Unlike personal storage, a catalog makes modules and components available as governed, releasable assets. Before a module saved in a catalog can be used, its maturity state must be set to Release in the Component Family Definition app. This signal informs the rest of the organization that the module is validated and ready for reuse. Once released, modules stored in the catalog are accessible through the Catalog Browser, where designers can search for, locate, and drag components directly into their active design. If a catalog is file-based rather than database-stored, only the components actively used in a project are saved to the 3DEXPERIENCE database when the project is synchronized. When a module in the catalog is revised, the catalog must be manually updated to reference the new revision, ensuring all active projects use the correct and current version of the module. |
Use Case: Eliminating Redundant Effort Through Structured ReuseScenario: In a modular design process, validated modules often remain inaccessible beyond the team or project for which they were built, forcing other groups across the organization to rebuild identical solutions independently, with no shared design knowledge base to reference. Here, using the Catalog feature in CATIA 3DEXPERIENCE, you can create a structured catalog with a defined classification hierarchy. You can then save fully defined modules under the correct classification path, complete with their preserved interface contracts and later retrieve or instantiate those modules into any new 3DPart. The interfaces will automatically adapt to the new context without requiring manual modification. |
Play the video to watch how to create Catalog and insert Modules to it. |
| Play the video to watch how to instantiate the Modules in New 3DPart. |
To learn more about Modules and Interfaces, you can refer Explore the Mechanical and Shape Engineer Role Learning Module. |
