The Complete CATIA to FBX Conversion Guide

This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Formats Knowledge Database. It shows how to convert CATIA to FBX, if you'd like to know more about the formats, please check out the following links:

• Learn more about the CATIA format
• Learn more about the FBX format

There are various ways to convert between CATIA and FBX. With RapidPipeline, you can easily convert and and optimize CATIA files, at scale. It supports FBX, as well as many other file formats (examples: 3dsMax, glTF, OBJ, PLY, STEP, STL, USD, USDZ, VRM), at high quality.

Below you can find a video explaining how to convert your files:

The CATIA file is a format mostly used for Advanced 3D design, engineering and manufacturing applications.
The FBX file is a format mostly used for interactive 3D & rendering applications.

The following limitations should be taken into account when converting CATIA files to FBX format:

CATIA Feature (not supported by FBX)	Limitation Details
Free-Form Surfaces	Free-Form Surfaces: supported in CATIA, but not in FBX. Free-form surfaces allow a CAD user to design surfaces with advanced controls over curvature and continuitiy. While these surfaces are common for CAD models (in the form of so-called boundary representations or "B-reps"), they need to be converted to polygonal triangle or quad data to work with most 3D rendering engines - a process called tessellation. In this example, a surface patch is used to describe a part of a curved surface of a product. Without support for this feature, the free-form surface has to be tessellated into quads or triangles.
Geometry Compression	Geometry Compression: supported in CATIA, but not in FBX. Geometry compression describes the process of compressing the representations of a 3D model's geometry, usually a triangle mesh. 3D geometry compression does not change the topology of a 3D model, but just changes the way that a 3D model and its 3D positions and related vertex data is stored. Geometry compression can be lossy (just like JPEG compression in image processing can be lossy, for example), in which case one might notice slight artifacts like variations in 3D vertex positions (compared to the uncompressed 3D model). However, such differences are often not noticeable. There are only very few standards for geometry compression, like glTF's support of Draco compression and similar extensions.
Texture Compression	Texture Compression: supported in CATIA, but not in FBX. Texture compression refers to a process of compressing 2D texture images for memory-efficient rendering (and sometimes for efficient transmission). The decompression of compressed texture data is therefore performed on-the-fly during rendering, so that it never has to be stored in unpacked form, but can be kept as-is in GPU memory. Formats supporting texture compression methods, such as the ones offered by glTF through KTX2 containers, therefore allow 3D models to use a smaller memory footprint on the client device during rendering. This can speed up rendering time, and also make it possible to store and use larger amounts of texture data than it would otherwise be possible.
Scene Composition	Scene Composition: supported in CATIA, but not in FBX. Scene Composition describes the process of composing a scene through links from a main scene that pull in various other scenes/3D models. This can also happen in a nested fashion (through multiple levels of linkage). With a target format not supporting this feature, references to external models must be resolved and the content be baked into one 3D model, which is then saved in that target format.
Standardized Format	Standardized Format: supported in CATIA, but not in FBX. Standardization plays a huge role in 3D model formats. With a format being standardized, every application will have a clear way of how to load or store data using this format. This makes it easier to re-use the 3D model across different applications, but also to make sure it will still be accessible and usable after a couple of years.

Doing 3D conversion right, especially at scale, can be tricky, as 3D data is in general a rather complex (yet very powerful!) medium. This also applies to CATIA and FBX files - the conversion guide above provides a rough first idea about that. Once you know what you would like to do, tools like RapidPipeline can help you perform the necessary steps, and to even automate the process for thousands or even millions of files.

Especially when introducing pipelines and workflows at scale in an enterprise context, it is usually good to rely on dedicated tools and expertise, making sure you do not introduce any steps into your 3D workflow that are detrimental to the final output's quality, or that take your team too much time (and money).

If you're interested to hire dedicated expertise from the best in the field to help your company reach your goals fast and reliably, please do not hestitate to contact DGG. Being the creators of RapidPipeline, and ambassadors for open 3D standards for more than a decade, we have been building some of the world's most advanced 3D pipelines, having processed many millions of 3D assets.

Therefore, our expertise will help you to reach your goals faster, at scale, and with the least possible friction, since we are focused on maximum interoperability.

To get started with 3D data conversion and optimization today, sign up for a free account!

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