MECODES CATIA Altium Integration

MECODES is integrating the mechatronic approach into the two most frequently used CAD tools. As the primary integration platform for the mechatronic approach, the CATIA V5 or SolidWorks 2013 as the MCAD solution and the Altium Designer 10/12 as ECAD authoring tool have been selected. The common tasks in each CAD tool are tracked at appropriate steps in multi-domain collaboration.To establish an efficient collaboration environment it is necessary to introduce a version control system which is specific for the process of multi-domain collaboration. Since the mechatronic products are usually made out of components which have to be represented in both CAD systems, there is a common integrated library where such components are stored and which can be manipulated and synchronized. The common electro-mechanical tasks depend on the model exchange protocols which are based on standard industry protocols and they contain different model related information. In spite of common understanding between engineers it was also necessary to introduce a communication environment for efficient message exchange.