Try the SDC training manual(s). I went through the one book before my company brought in a privatre tutor to teach me the finer things.. it was a waste of money. i wound up teaching the tutor things....
oh, and the best part is... the book is CHEAP! (well, at least when compared to training)
And sometimes you don't get what you are paying for
I have had good CATIA trainers and bad CATIA trainers over the years. I still believe that hands on, instructor based training is the best, but i have also learned much on my own by reading the documentation at testing the software.
Nearly 27 years ago I had a full week (about 50 hours) of one-to-one Catia training on Version 1; it was provided by a IBM senior software engineer who knew Catia inside out. I can't think of a better way of learning Catia — I was very fortunate. During the next few months this IBM engineer used to come in, now and again, to answer all the questions I had, and spend a couple of hours explaining it all in greater detail. The only documentation I had was a book of photo-copied typed notes, all written by my instructor — but I didn't see it until about 6 months after I had a started using Catia. Because of the experience I had by then, I was able to get a lot out of the book; I still have the book now.
Obviously, not everyone is lucky enough to get that level of training — but it's important to be trained by someone who really knows what they're doing. Trying to cut training costs is just a false economy — in the end it will prove to be more expensive. It's also important to apply what you've learned straight away; if what has been taught is not applied, then it will soon fade with time. After that it's essential to put the hours in, until gradually it all becomes second nature . . .
In-house training can some times turn out to be not the best thing after all: not only does the tutor have to know their stuff (with regard to Catia), but that person should also have some grasp of the type of work that the Catia trainee will be doing with Catia. But, most importantly, the tutor needs to be able to communicate well — and also able to listen to the person(s) being trained. It doesn't help if there are endless interruptions, which is likely if the training is taking place in a busy open-plan office. On the other hand, the trainee must put any other comparable system experience out of the way, it's no good if the person being taught keeps comparing Catia to whatever package they may have used before — forget it.
The worst situation is where someone who hasn't really understood what Catia is — and what to do with it, starts training other people a few months later — and passing on bad habits . . .
In my case I needed to use complex curve & surface fitting methods immediately after the training, so I had an intense instruction in Arc, Spline, Curve1, Curve2, Surf1, Surf2, Law, Analysis, Transforms and so on — it was drummed into me so well, and I did so much of it quarter of a century ago, that I could probably use it now; the most difficult thing would be getting used to a light-pen and a separate function keyboard again (anybody remember them?) . . . Catia in early 1983 was on a small, almost square, black & white screen; elements were displayed as wireframe only; all you saw on the screen were numerous white points, straight and curved lines — there was no colour, no colour fill, no visualisation of surfaces and solids. Compared to whatever release level Catia is at now (I'm retired now, so I've no idea), in some ways it must be almost easier to learn today — because people are far more prepared for it now: they are computer literate at an early age. I had only come off the drawing board less than a year before — even though I'd spent that time using the somewhat limited surface capability of IBM's Cadam software, Catia was a big step, or more of a huge leap — I had never even touched a keyboard before I was 40 years old — things are a bit different today.
I can't comment on using Catia to create drawings, because whenever that facility was introduced, I never had any reason to use it — I haven't done any drawing as such, since 1982, as drafters picked up the views in Cadam (via the Catia function 'CadamW', which wrote the model to a Cadam one on the IBM mainframe) and later on in Catia, before turned them into fully detailed and dimensioned drawings.
Get the best training you can: in fact, insist on it. You will not regret it — and nor will your employer.
may be cheap trainer killed the business of good trainer. and now, good ones changed job.
I am sure that if serious client wants good trainer, they could find some, but not at today's price. sorry.
10 years ago teachers were experienced users converted to training because they knew the software, they could teach and they had years of experience on the job.
Now you have kids out of school "teaching". no offence but it does not look good to me.
Eric N. indocti discant et ament meminisse periti
