Tips and Techniques
Tools and Technologies for Deploying CATIA on Microsoft Windows 2000
By Brad Bossio, Microsoft
System administrators who wish to install the Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional operating system on hundreds or thousands of computers can use automated deployment tools to save time, improve consistency and reduce deployment costs. These tools automatically perform tasks and answer questions for you during Setup. It is not necessary to spend time answering questions and manually configuring each computer. Microsoft had improved the design of the automated deployment options for Windows 2000 Professional, making installation simpler and more fully automated.
You should choose the deployment tools that best support your project. You can use one or more of these depending on:
- Whether you want to perform upgrades or perform clean installations.
- Whether your existing network configuration supports the tools.
- Whether your goals are standardized desktop environments or customization.
To learn more about this, read the white paper posted on COE's Web site.
You can also visit the following Web site for more information: http://microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/client/autodeploy.asp
You can hear more on these issues by hearing Brad Bossio speak at the COE fall conference, September 30 - October 3, at the Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida.
Surface Analysis - V4
By Tom Cisler, EADS Matra Datavision
A common error many make when using CATIA's many surfacing tools is neglecting to analyze the surfaces after they are created. Surface analysis basically tells you two things about your surfaces:
- Quality - are your surfaces free from flaws (bumps, gouges, pockets)?
- Aesthetics - do your surfaces form a shape that possess the "look" desired by the stylist?
CATIA has several methods available to perform the analysis:
Visual - this basically means you shade the surfaces and inspect them. In doing so, I would suggest reducing the DISCRETN value to 0.01mm and use a dark color (one trick is to switch to a 2D space plane, the part will shade in the dark green NO-PICK color).
Reflect Curves - this method simulates how light will fall over the part. It can pick up surface flaws and surface-to-surface tangency/curvature conditions. These reflect curves can be created using CURVE1+REFLECT or can be defined using RTA.
GAUSIAN shading - this method replaces the "normal" shading with a "curvature shading." It shows very dramatically curvature changes over your surfaces. It can very easily show flaws and unwanted surface features.
Both the RTA and GAUSIAN analysis require the Free Form Design (FRF) license. It is a very valuable license to have and is available a very reasonable cost.
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