Home > Supported File Formats > CATIA to LightWave

How to convert CATIA (.catpart,.catproduct) to LightWave (.lws,.lwo)?

PolyTrans|CAD+DCC performs mathematically precise CAD, DCC/Animation, GIS and BIM 3D file conversions into all key downstream 3D packages and file formats. Okino software is used and trusted throughout the world by many tens of thousands of 3D professionals in mission & production critical environments, backed by respectable personal support directly from our core development team.

CATIA

CATIA, developed by Dassault Systèmes, is an integrated suite of CAD, CAE and CAM applications for digital product definition and simulation. CATIA is primarily used by the automotive and aerospace industries for automobile and aircraft product and tooling design.

The key file extensions used with CATIA v5 software are ".catpart" for the part and geometry files, and ".catproduct" for the assembly files.

Conversions from CATIA can best be done either via Okino's native CATIA v5 importer (which is based on the real and actual CATIA v5 runtime system licensed from Dassault Systèmes), or equally well via STEP AP214 files.

LightWave

LightWave is a well known and respected DCC/Animation system which has been around since the early days of the Amiga. It continues to be developed by Newtek Inc.

Okino implemented the main system to read and write LightWave .lwo and .lws files as of 1993, with the peak demand for our LightWave converters being throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, after which other animation systems became more popular (3ds Max, Maya and Softimage).

Fortunately a copy of the LightWave software is not needed to convert to/from the .lws and .lwo formats (as otherwise is the defacto case for the 3ds Max and Maya animation systems). The general scene data is stored in the ASCII .lws scene file whereas the binary .lwo file contains the geometry and material information.

CATIA import converter's overview

LightWave export converter's overview