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Open CATIA v4 files from UNIX on v4 on Windows using external project files

I'm attempting to open CATIA v4 models (which are on AIX 4.3 systems) on CATIA v5 (running on a Windows XP system). When I do, I get the following message:

No Internal or External PRJ file
No visualization of texts and dimensions.
Please inform the v4 Project File path in Tools/Options.

I've located the *.project files on the AIX system and copied them over to the Windows system and pointed PROJECT File Path to the project files location. However, I still get the warning message and I do not see any of the dimensions and notes.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot.

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silverkorn

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mcjim2k

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Using the above information I was able to get models to open up with all of the texts and dimensions. The key issue here was replacing special characters in the project file names so that windows could properly read them. Plus you needed a table that showed which characters were replaced with which new characters.

Below is a script I wrote to replace the characters:

#!/bin/ksh

dir="/projects/name_wim"
cd $dir

echo
echo 'Renaming files in'
echo $dir
echo

for i in $(ls -a) 
do

if [[ $i != "." && $i != ".." ]];then
	fname="$i"
	orgname="$i"
	fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\"/_Inch/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\*/\x/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\±/\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\//\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\:/\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\</\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\>/\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\?/\_/g"`
        fname=`echo $fname | tr '\\' '_'`
        fname=`echo $fname | sed "s/\|/\_/g"`
	echo `echo $orgname | head -c 20` ' ... ' `echo $orgname | tail -c -20` 
	mv $orgname $fname
fi

done

echo
echo 'Done renaming files for windows compatability.'

Open in new window

I then moved these files on to my windows machine and referenced the folder in:
Tools>Options, Compatability > v4 Data Reading tab, PROJECT File Path.

You then need to create the character mapping table:

0x22	"	_Inch	42
0x2a	*	x	52
0xB1	±	_	261
0x2f	/	_	57
0x3a	:	_	72
0x3c	<	_	74
0x3e	>	_	76
0x3f	?	_	77
0x5c	\	_	134
0x7c	|	_	174

Open in new window

And reference that at:
Tools>Options, Compatability > v4 Data Reading tab, Characters Equivalence Table Path

Once that was done, i re-opened the v4 model in v5 and it said there was a conflict with project files, which is fine, just select YES because you want to use the external project files.

And now the text and dimensions should show up.

Hopefully this helps others.