I will try to explain my intention:
Say I have a CATIA model of a box, I need to fill that box with smaller cubes. Unfortunately, I don't have access to Catia, so I cannot work directly with that file extension. My workaround is assuming that the CATIA model is first converted to stl, I will fill that stl box with stl cubes, then I convert those cubes to CATIA, and finally add it to the original catia file. I cannot convert the entire modified stl file to catia, since the original catia box must retain its parts, and stl kinda saves everything into 1 mesh. The problem is, I don't know if points' coordinates are retained throughout all the conversion processes, so when combining 2 file, I can have the cubes nicely arranged in the original box. I know stl stores data by vertices of triangles, but how does catia store data? And if it stores data by points too, does it retain the original coordinate axis when converted to stl (and vice versa)?
I'm kinda searching in the dark since I don't have access to the real CATIA software, so sorry in advance if this question seems stupid. STL is just one option that I can think of right now, if there are any other file extensions that can ease the job, I'm open to suggestions too. Thank you!
Well CATIA uses CATPart and CATProduct for part and assembly. The contents of those files is a mess (unreadable except for some small info). If you export CATPart to STL you lose everything you created in catia - its called alive model. Alive models keep the history of making and you can change everything with Catia if you open them. STL is called dead model in CATIA because you have only the shape and if you want to work with it and change it you have to build it from scratch. And i think if you want to import STL back to CATIA you will see only the unpicable surfaces. No solid only mesh, and its basically only for viewing except if you have some modules like Digitized Shape Editor etc.
I would suggest different formats like STP. STP is human readable and its not mesh based but solid based. It is still a dead model for CATIA but you can change it without problems using part design or shape design.
You can experiment with this list of files.
