is there any way of grouping different bodies within a CATPart into a goup, but not assemble them using booleans? Something similar to a sub-product, but inside a single file... I know it was possible in UG...
If they make contact to each other - no. If no contact, add a new body then assemble partbodies.
The design intent of Catia - 1 partbody = 1 part. You can run the software with many solids in 1 file, you will loose the advantages of assemblies.
Received a tool assembly from another company, came as parasolid. Converted it to step, imported in catia and got a single file with all the bodies in the tool... We don't really need to build an assembly right now, so I was wondering if I could just somehow group toghether all the bodies from the upper side of the tool, and in another group all the bodies from the lower side... A faster method was to split the bodies in 2 files, one for the upper side, one for the lower side...
The main reason of my question was if there was any "hidden" way to do this, since in ug it was so simple... I am a catia "fan" myself, I didn't particulary like ug, but in some regards it was better...
If you want a simple way to select all the "upper" bodies or "lower" bodies quickly, I would suggest creating Selection Sets. Make a Set with all the lower bodies and another with the upper bodies then use Selection Set (Ctrl+G) to choose the desired set.
Can you import parasolid back to UG, step it out of UG in an assembly? Sorry, the UG guy here is gone home. With the correct step options you can read in as an assembly.