Knowledge Advisor - catia

About Design TablesA design table provides you with a means to create and manage component families. These components can be for examplemechanical parts just differing in their parameter values. Screws are a good example of mechanical parts that can be described by adesign table. To simplify, imagine they all described by four parameters: the head width, the head height, the body width and the bodyheight. The sets of four parameter values that can be assigned to a screw can be easily regrouped in a design table. This design tablehas as many columns as screw parameters and as many rows as sets of parameter values. In a design table, a set of parametervalues is called a configuration and it is registered in a row.A design table is a tool mainly intended to ease the definition of mechanical parts. It is provided to all CATIA users. But you will makethe best use of it in a Knowledge Advisor application. A design table can be created from a CATIA document, the document data isthen exported to the design table. It can also be applied to a document, the document data is then imported from the design table.The purpose of the design table is to drive the parameters of a CATIA document from external values. These values are stored in theform of a table either in a Microsoft ® Excel file on Windows or in a tabulated text file. When using a design table the trick is toassociate the right document parameters with the right table parameters. The design table columns may not all correspond to yourdocument parameters and you may decide to apply only part of the design table values to your document. By creating associations,you declare what document parameters you want to link with what table columns.The design table becomes a more powerful tool when it is used with the Knowledge Advisor. You are provided with functions to readthe design table parameters. These design table functions can be used when programming your checks and rules. Using thesefunctions spares you all the association operations.The Excel Sheet Format (on Windows)The values mentioned in the sheet cells have to be expressed in appropriate units. Otherwise, the right values won't be associatedwith the document parameters.If no unit is mentioned within a cell:the unit taken into account is the one mentioned in the first rowand if no unit is specified in the first row, the unit taken into account is the relevant MKS system unit.Here is an example of an Excel sheet: