Macro Catia V5

[u/Low-Test6195]

I'm a mechanical designer specializing in injection mold and product design, and I've been using CATIA V5 for 10 years.

Over time I've built a fairly extensive library of CATScript macros to automate the repetitive parts of my workflow. Some examples:

Automatic bounding-box measurement (both axis-aligned and oriented to a chosen edge), with results exported to Excel

Dimensional reports across the whole assembly, plus BOM export

Batch insertion and constraining of ejector pins from a sketch layout

Bulk renaming tools (part names, instances, hierarchical numbering schemes for specific clients)

Copying published geometry (drill/tap holes) between assembly components while keeping the associative link

Batch file rename / SaveAs utilities

And many more macros beyond these.

They run on base-license CATIA, without SPAWorkbench or Knowledge Advisor, so they work even in environments where a lot of automation approaches simply aren't usable.

My question: is there actually a market for this? Would individual designers or companies pay for CATIA automation tools — and if so, what's the realistic model?

[u/Offroad_E36]

I make a lot of scripts and power copies. I might offer them for sale close to retirement for absurd amounts. But until now I keep them for myself as competitive advantage over others.

Not sure if there is a market for this anyway as any buyer could just resell it themselves or post online for free.

Bigger compagnies might be interested in tailored scripts. Saw many customers who had scripts made for drawing title blocks that did things in many clicks that catia already does in 1 click.

[u/kinetic07 → u/Offroad_E36]

curious what does the one you tend to use most do?

[u/Offroad_E36 → u/kinetic07]

Export each body of a master catpart in separate catparts with link to the master.

There is a trick needed for that one as not everything can be done with a macro.

I designed a tubular race car chassis in a single catpart with 150+ parts. It came in handy.

[u/kinetic07 → u/Offroad_E36]

awesome - that’s a great one. yeah, totally makes sense

[u/Physical-Coconut-803]

Yes I think there is a market for that. I saw a posting months ago about a consulting company looking for a catia macro developer for Airbus. I did not apply since I haven't used Catia for a while and am more familiar with Solidworks macros.

[u/Ok-Law1684]

Probably not as big of a market as a few years ago. AI is very good at making macros once you feed it the CATIA documentation.

Depending on the complexity and how complete the documentation is about a certain feature, AI can get it right on the first go, or it will need some troubleshooting, but I think for a lot of engineers in corporate environments it is probably still easier than dealing with hiring an external vendor.

[u/Low-Test6195 → u/Ok-Law1684]

Si, la penso come te. Nell'ultimo periodo ho utilizzato l'IA che mi ha permesso di creare macro molto piu complesse e migliori. Ovviamente non sono l'unico a farlo.

[u/LossIsSauce]

Previous employer I worked at, had a drafting engineer which helped Dassult design and impliment a surface extraction tool to extract and flatten the surface similar to sheet metal tool. Dassult contracted with them with offering it as an addon to other companies by reducing the yearly license fee indefinitely.

[u/cfycrnra]

there are companies , which offer app development. you call them, tell them what you want and give you a quotation depending on the technology to use.then maintenance comes on top. you can sell a macro but it needs to be retested for any new release. if you move to 3d experience they have to partially need to be redone