Text in CATIA was originally developed by Drew Mumaw and Stewart Simpson at Purdue University. It was the focus of a senior capstone project for a computer graphics technology course. The tool automates the process of creating smooth 3D text in CATIA V5.

1) Open a CATPart in CATIA V5
2) Run TextInCatia.exe
3) Input text and click OK

It can use any outline type font file installed in C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

It can create any Unicode character: a A 1 3 © ™ Ø ± ÷ etc...

The program is compatible with the latest release of CATIA V5

The client machine must be running Windows XP, Vista, 7 with the .NET 3.5 Framework installed. If you don't have it then the setup wizard will install it for you or you can get it from Microsoft here

You can download the .exe files without the installer here TextInCatia.zip

What is the "Cannot connect to webservice" error? This is most likely caused by a firewall or accessing the internet through a proxy server. You will have to enable port 80 incoming/outgoing, TCP. For the HTTP proxy exceptions the webservice is located at www.textincatia.com.

What is the "CATIA caused an exception. CATPart must be open" error? Is CATIA remotely hosted or is it locally installed, for example, C:\Program Files\Dassault Systemes\B20\win_b64? In order for applications to communicate with one another (i.e. CATIA and Text in CATIA) they publish a COM (component object model) interface that other applications can access. To the best of our knowledge it only works locally and not when an application, such as CATIA, is being run from a server. To date, we haven't been able to get the application to work with users running CATIA from a server environment, but we are continuing to look for a solution.

What if "," (comma) denotes a decimal in my language and not "." (period)? This is a localization issue. Until we release the standalone version, which will have default values of "25" and "3", you will have to change the current default Size and Spacing parameters from "25.4" to "25,4" and "5.0" to "5,0".

Can it process stroke (single line) fonts? This feature will be included in the soon to be released standalone version.

Can it process Arabic, etc? No. It will create the characters, but they will not be connected nor will they read right to left. Certain languages, like Arabic, combine the characters into one when written together. The tool will process the characters separately. Also, it cannot process text on a curve, vertical, or right to left. It only creates left to right. It was developed with the intention of keeping the options simple.

Why does it need to access the internet? The font outline to geometry conversion is currently done via the webservice. We will release a purchasable standalone version of the tool in 2012. It will include a text sample box, the ability to process stroke (single line) fonts, and a smoothing algorithm to ensure character outlines maintain G1 tangent curvature continuity.

What is the format of the resultant text? It creates the text as polyline and spline geometry within a sketch.

How was the tool developed? The tool was developed using Visual Basic .NET and C# components that access the CATIA V5 API.

Who owns the intellectual property? We've recently confirmed that we own the rights to the IP.

Inquiries can be sent to support@3dtextsolutions.com