CATIA TIPS:1
Memory Optimization for CatiaV4 in AIX systems 		 
 
Is CATIA V4 taking advantage of your available memory on AIX?
Many of you may not be aware of a CATIA Environment Variable called CAT_MEM.This variable "tells" CATIA how much of your available memory it is allowed to use.Even if you have (for example) 512 MB of real memory and 512 MB of paging space set
up, if your CAT_MEM value is not set properly, CATIA will not take advantage of it.The CATIA default value of CAT_MEM is defined by the code to be 2. To determine your current value of CAT_MEM, open a UNIX window is issue the command: echo $CAT_MEM
The variable can be set in 3 ways:
1. Open a UNIX window and issue the command:export CAT_MEM=X (where X is a value from 1 to 8) then start CATIA (e.g. catini -XM) from this window. The CAT_MEM will be in affect only for the CATIA sessions which are started from this UNIX window.
2. Add this variable (above statement) in your .profile / .dtprofile located in your $HOME directory, so that it will take affect on every CATIA Environment, no matter how you start the CATIA session (command line or CatMotif Icon).
3. Add this variable (above statement) in an ".env" file in the $CAT_CUST/env so that it only affects a
specific environment.
In addition to the CAT_MEM variable, you can adjust the values for
stack memory and data space memory .
You can adjust these in the following file: /etc/security/limits
If you set the values of STACK and DATA equal to Negative one (-1), this will tell CATIA to set these values unlimited. These values affect MALLOC dynamically accessed memory which is used for graphics display, and doing computations within CATIA. A note of
caution though, do not set these values to unlimited if you run CATIA on a multi-user machine that shares CPU (i.e. several users running X Windows based CATIA from one machine), as this can cause errors to occur.
 
CATIA TIPS:2
Optimized ways of creating PowerCopy in CatiaV5?
 

* As far as possible, minimize the number of elements making up the Power Copy.
* When defining Power Copies including sketches, use profiles constrained with respect to edges or faces rather than to planes.
* Additionally, set the option Create geometrical constraints off before sketching. Generally speaking, it is always preferable to use profiles both rigid and mobile. 
* It is preferable to constrain elements with respect to external references such as faces, edges, reference or explicit planes.  
* It is preferable not to use projections nor intersections in your sketch if you want to use your sketch in a Power Copy.   
* Avoid constraints defined with respect to reference planes.   
* Before creating your Power Copies, make sure that your sketch is not over-constrained.   
* Make sure that your sketch is iso-constrained (green color). You can use non- iso-constrained sketches, but it will be more difficult to understand and control the result after instantiation.   
* Create sketches on an axis system, to better control the Sketch position.   
* Avoid access to sub-elements.   
* Formulas are automatically included if you select all the parameters.   
* For complex design, integrate knowledge rules.   
* You cannot select a Power Copy reference as the component of another Power Copy