pycatia 0.6.0

A python module to interface with the CATIA V5 COM object.

alpha software

This is alpha software.

All the test cases and examples work but there will be many issues outside of the test framework. The CATIA com interface is huge and I’ve predominantly only worked / tested on those I can figure out how to use.

The entire framework is now in place for others to contribute so if you know CATIA and python (being already familiar with automation using the more traditional methods will help) please do contribute. Bonus points for adding tests too.

I have limited access to CATIA licences / workbenches. Also, there’s are many modules that I simply don’t know what they do. Thus my ability to test things is extremely limited.

All this said many bugs that exist should be for the most part be quite easy to fix using those methods that do work as a reference.

Why was it made?

pycatia was initially created to access the CATIA Automation Measurable object and it’s methods without the need of visual basic / CATScripts.

Some of the methods can be accessed directly using the pywin32 module but there are a number that just simply won’t work using python. There are several questions on stack overflow and the pywin32 mailing list regarding this. But, they failed to provide any working examples with the Measurable object in python.

pycatia accesses these methods by running VBA scripts using the Dispatch(‘CATIA.Application’).SystemService.Evaluate() function and passing a public function to it. Otherwise, pycatia uses the VB method directly but exposes it within the same python class.

There is now further functionality available which can be seen by looking at the examples provided and reading the API at pycatia.readthedocs.io.

Requirements

• python >= 3.9

• CATIA V5 running on Windows.

• see requirements.txt

Installation

see installation.

Usage

See the introduction and examples provided via the documentation link.

Links

Releases: pycatia @ pypi.org

Examples

See the documentation @ examples.

Asking Questions

Please read the following with regards to raising questions: https://github.com/evereux/pycatia/issues/28

Please do not email me directly requesting support unless this is business related and you would like professional support.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md in root of github repository.

Running The Tests

Prior to running the tests please ensure CATIA V5 has the following configuration settings:

• CGR cache system must be disabled.

• Parameter names must not have back ticks enabled. Tools > Options > General > Parameters and Measure > Knowledge > Parameter Names > Surrounded by the ` symbol.

On the first run, during the running of the tests, the test suite will create the CATIA drawing, products and part it requires to run in the folder tests/cat_files.

CATIA V5 should already be running and have NO documents already open.

To run the tests with coverage (-v is verbosity):

py.test -v --cov-report term-missing --cov=pycatia

To run a specific test:

py.test -v tests/test_product.py::test_move

To stop tests running after first failure.

py.test -vx

Release process

A reminder for @evereux. I don’t do this often and forget …

• Check version is correct.

• Check changelog has been updated.

• Run the tests. pytest -v tests

  • Ensure cache is disabled and

  • Fix any issues.

• Run the examples.

  • Fix any issues.

• Build the docs. cd docs make html

  • Fix any issues.

• Run mypy over module. mypy pycatia

• Build source. python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel

  • Check source contents.

• Build pycatia exe python -m nuitka --standalone pycatia-exe.py. * use 64 env. * rename pycatia-exe.exe. * copy build to win_32 folder and zip.

• Merge changes with master branch and upload.

• Upload to pypi. twine upload dist/*.

• Update github releases.