CATIA

CATIA (Computer Aided Three dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform PLM/CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM. It was used by Frank Gehry in his building of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. CATIA is written in the C++ programming language using the Standard Template Library.

Features and Capabilities
Commonly referred to as a 3D Product Lifecycle Management software suite, CATIA supports multiple stages of product development (CAx). The stages range from conceptualization, through design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM), until analysis (CAE). CATIA provides an open development architecture through the use of interfaces, which can be used to customize or develop applications. The application programming interfaces supported are as follows:
The Fortran and C programming languages for version 4 (V4). The Visual Basic and C++ programming languages for version 5 (V5). These APIs are referred to as CAA for V4 and CAA2 (or CAA V5) for V5. The CAA2 are component object model (COM) based interfaces. They provide integration for products developed on the CATIA suite of software.
Although later versions of CATIA V4 implemented NURBS, version 4 principally used piecewise polynomial surfaces. CATIA V4 uses a non-manifold solid engine.
Catia V5 features a parametric solid/surface-based package which uses NURBS as the core surface representation and has several workbenches that provide KBE support. 3DXML is the basis for model visualization, persistence, and distribution.
As of 2007, the latest release is V5 release 17 (V5R17).
One of the main reasons customers choose CATIA V5 is its ability to seamlessly interact and work in tandem with a host of other applications like Enovia , Smarteam , various CAE Analysis applications etc.