Catia+v5+sketch+tools ★ Trusted

The first time Maia opened Catia V5, she thought of it as a labyrinth of possibilities—an engine for parts and assemblies, a black box where engineers whispered in sketches. She called it her sketchbook of metals.

Line and Curve Tools

• Coincidence: Puts a point on a line or two endpoints together.
• Concentricity: Aligns the centers of two circles or arcs.
• Tangency: A circle touches a line; an arc flows into a line. (If your pad fails with "Geometric discontinuity," your tangency constraint is missing).
• Parallelism / Perpendicular: For orthogonal designs.
• Fix: Locks an element to the space. Warning: Overusing "Fix" ignores design intent.

Pro Tip:

Enable "Diagnostics" (the green/red traffic light icon). This colors your sketch elements: catia+v5+sketch+tools

• "The sketch is not closed": You have a gap in your profile. Use the Analyze Sketch tool (Tools > Sketch Analysis) to find open ends. Usually, two points are not coincident.
• "Impossible operation": Often caused by intersecting lines (self-intersecting profile) or zero-thickness geometry.
• Orange/Purple Lines: Indicates over-constrained geometry. Delete redundant dimensions or constraints.
• Iso-Constrained: This means the sketch is perfectly defined.

7. Conclusion

• Profile – Continuous line/arc chain
• Predefined Profiles: Rectangle, Oriented Rectangle, Parallelogram, Hexagon, Centered Rectangle, Cylinder Elongation
• Circle / Arc – 3-point, bi-tangent, tri-tangent, arc by center points
• Spline – Freeform curve through points
• Conic – Hyperbola, parabola, ellipse
• Line – Infinite/bounded, bi-tangent, angle/normal to curve
• Axis – Construction line (often for symmetry/revolve)