How to control a 3D model via the API in Catia

Question

I have the following scenario: i am building a animatronic hand using some flex sensor, arduino board and 5 servo. No problem on this side. But i have the following idea: to build a 3D CAD model of the hand in Catia, and in real time the virtual hand to copy the movements of the real hand in real time. I used something in Matlab when i did some plots in real time with some data from some sensor. It is posible to do that in Catia? To get the data from arduino and based on that data to simulate the movements of the virtual hand in real time. Can you tell if it posibile ?

The 3D model of the hand will not be very complex and the hand won't move very quickly.

Answer 1

I am afraid it would not be fast enough. Maybe using a reduced model would help.

However, the best option is to have a VB.NET application (I think C# would also work, but never tried it) that communicates with CATIA and Arduino board.

To get CATIA from VB.NET you can do something like

Module Main
    Sub Main()
        Dim CATApp as System.Type = System.Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Catia.Application")
        Dim CATIA as Object = System.Activator.CreateInstance(CATApp)
        'use CATIA object from now on as you would usually do
    End Sub
End Module

To talk with the Arduino board you need to monitor the Serial Port

Now you can read data from Arduino, process it, and send command using the automation API to CATIA in order to update your model.