Using CATIA V5 with 3D Electrical Design

3D Electrical Design enables the embedding of the Capital Wiring Integrator tree objects and output panel into the Capital Navigator window of CATIA V5 allowing you to efficiently manage integration tasks.

When using CATIA V5 with 3D Electrical Design there are a number of 3D modelling activities happening using the routing capabilities of CATIA to create standard 3D harness models. In parallel the Capital functionality can be utilized to create the platform level wiring routing, using the 3D harness assemblies authored in CATIA V5.

The great benefit here is that you do not have to wait for all the harnesses in a design to be completely modeled. You can kick off your electrical design activities with just one harness and build the connectivity iteratively as more and more harness models are created.

The number of signals and wires will, obviously, be impacted by how many harness are added, as well as the number of inline connectors between them. However the functionality enables you to get an early start in creating your design flow.

In essence you can commence your design tasks as soon as you have one harness, then add, or even removes harnesses as required. Constantly refreshing your data throughout the task.

Teamcenter manages and controls all the actual design data. You must have a Teamcenter account and you must be logged in to it prior to embarking on design activities as all data is served from, and saved back to Teamcenter. If a Teamcenter connection is not established you are prompted to login to Teamcenter.

Once you have logged in to Teamcenter authentication is required and this is achieved using the Teamcenter connection token established between CATIA and Teamcenter. Once complete the Capital Navigator window is accessible within CATIA. A Teamcenter icon is visible indicating that this session is essentially an Teamcenter Active Workspace browser embedded within the CATIA navigator.

You can use the CATIA V5 plugin to create your 3D harness models. Once a harness is created and submitted (saved) back to Teamcenter an .XML file in native Capital Harness .XML (.X2ML) format is also automatically saved to the project and attached as a dataset. This is handled automatically by the CATIA V5 / Teamcenter integration. This .XML is then used to exchange information with Capital and is dynamically updated every time the harness assembly model is re-submitted or saved back into Teamcenter.

Multiple harnesses can be created and added throughout the design lifecycle process by both single users and teams of harness design engineers and each of these harnesses, and their accompanying .XML datasets will be saved in Teamcenter. The key reason being that by managing the data within Teamcenter the system can retrieve updated harness information and exchange it automatically with Capital. You do not need to have NX, or CATIA V5, open.

Parent Topic:

Introduction to 3D Electrical Design

3D Electrical Design User Guide, 2512.2606

Unpublished work. © 2026 Siemens