About Working within the Associative Topology Bus (ATB) Environment
Associative Topology Bus (ATB) creates a heterogeneous environment for working with parts and assemblies created in different CAD systems and imported to Creo Parametric. Both part and assembly models can be heterogeneous. A heterogeneous assembly contains component geometry created in CAD systems such as Creo Parametric, Autodesk Inventor, CADDS 5, CATIA, CDRS, ICEM, NX, SolidWorks, and Creo Elements/Direct. A heterogeneous part consists of imported features and Creo Parametric geometry.
ATB propagates changes made to the original CAD system data in the heterogeneous design environment.
With ATB, you can:
• Work with an Autodesk Inventor, CADDS 5, CATIA V4 or V5, CDRS, ICEM, NX, Neutral, SolidWorks, Creo Elements/Direct, or Creo Granite-based part in Creo Parametric.
• Work with an Autodesk Inventor, CADDS 5, CATIA V4, NX, Neutral, SolidWorks, Creo Elements/Direct, or Granite-based assembly in Creo Parametric.
• Work with a Creo Parametric part or assembly in CADDS 5.
• Associatively reference imported geometry.
ATB information is stored at the model or feature-level and depends on the ATB format and model type. ATB update of the imported models and features that are ATB-enabled is completely associative with the native system. All geometric IDs preserved by the native system after the change to the native file are also preserved in the imported geometry by the ATB update. This allows any child features of the imported geometry to regenerate successfully after the update is complete. Data exchange with ATB retains unique entity IDs and recognizes the current model revision number.
Creo Parametric uses ATB for cross-release interoperability and provides a collaborative environment with earlier releases of Pro/ENGINEER. Cross-release interoperability allows ATB-enabled Neutral file transfer between different versions of Pro/ENGINEER.