CATIA V5 Tutorial: What is Federation and How to use it

Federation is grouping elements like surfaces and curves in a Join for easy picking of surfaces/curve later. Federation can be found in “Join” and “Extract” command in CATIA V5 GSD(Generative Shape Design) Workbench. This is useful grouping feature. We shall explain you what is it and how to use it.

Consider a set of simple surfaces as shown in the image below. The Geometrical set consists of 4 surfaces.

Surface 1, Surface 2, Surface 3 and Surface 4 is included in ‘Join.1’. In the Federation tab of join command we have added Surface 4 and Surface 3 as shown in the image below.

Join.1 with ‘F’ is reflected in the Join command icon in the model tree.
For comparison, we have created a simple ‘Join.2’ without Federation. ‘Join.2’ is join of Surface 1, Surface 2, Surface 3 and Surface 4.

‘Extract’ command on ‘Join.2’ gives 4 elements selection (refer image below).

Where as ‘Extract’ on ‘Join.1’ gives only 3 elements. That’s because Join.1 involves Federation of two surfaces. Those two surfaces are grouped together.

This way in a complex geometry you can group several surfaces and involve it in a Federation. Later selecting of those surfaces is very simple and will happen in a single click.