CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suitedeveloped by the French company Dassault Systemes and marketed worldwide by IBM. Written in the C++ programming language, CATIA is the cornerstone of the Dassault Systemes product lifecycle management software suite.

The software was created in the late 1970s and early 1980s to develop Dassault's Mirage fighter jet, then was adopted in the aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, and other industries.

-- taken from Wikipedia.org

Its a very powerful CAD software that can do alot of analysis, and to my surprise, it isnt very well-known in our country's industries. Main reason is that the license is very expensive and in Malaysia we have more small companies than those big corporate one so they do not have the money nor they have the need to use such powerful software. Anyhow, our university teaches CAD/CAM based on CATIA so I think it will do me good even if I shift my works to other platform in the upcoming future.
The 1st time I used CATIA was few sems ago where I have to submit a CAD assignment, which I chose to draw Gundam RX-78-2 Ver-Ka. That time I was using Windows Vista and I have to format my PC back to Windows XP due to CATIA v5 not really compatible with Windows Vista.
This time, I am using Windows 7 and I have to use CATIA v5 again, for my FYP purpose. I just finished installing and it actually works!
That's the main point I wanna tell in this post.
The 2nd point of this post is that there is no 2nd point.
LOL.
Have a nice day!