DRYCAD Suite | User Documentation | v1.0.0
Table of Contents
1. Overview
Deleting a Body in CATIA the standard way doesn’t remove what that Body created along the way. Every Boolean child body, every geometrical set, every sketch it depended on gets exploded out into the tree instead of disappearing with it, leftovers you then have to find and clean up one by one. DRY0061 skips that entirely: select a Body, confirm, and the whole branch it grew, children, geometrical sets, and sketches included, is gone in one action.
What it does:
- Deletes a selected Body along with every Boolean child Body, Geometrical Set, and Sketch nested beneath it
- Confirms the exact Body name before deleting anything
- Correctly handles the case where the selected Body is the Part’s main body, pruning its children without removing the main body itself
- Runs as a single confirmed action from the CommandBar, no panel to open first
Supported CAD platforms: CATIA V5
Workspace requirement: An active Part document must be open in CATIA, with a Body to delete either already selected or selectable when prompted.
2. Getting Started
Prerequisites
- CATIA V5 must be running
- You must be logged into the DRYCAD Suite
- An active Part document must be open in CATIA
- Optionally, a single Body already selected in the specification tree before launching
Launching the Tool
DRY0061 has no panel of its own. Click its button on the DRYCAD Suite CommandBar and it acts immediately on the current selection, or prompts you to make one.
The tool checks the following conditions at startup, and will show an error and close if any fail:
- A valid user session is found, if not: “User not found. Please login and try again.”
- CATIA V5 is running and accessible, if not: “CATIA is not open. Please open CATIA and try again.”
- The active document is a Part, if not, an “Invalid Workspace” error is shown and the tool closes
A background watchdog checks periodically whether CATIA is still running, closing the tool automatically if the parent process exits mid-run.
3. Deletion Behavior
Because DRY0061 has no interface, everything happens through selection state and a single confirmation step.
3.1 Selecting the Body
If exactly one Body is already selected in CATIA at the moment the tool launches, that Body is used directly and the tool moves straight to confirmation. If the current selection doesn’t qualify, nothing selected, more than one item selected, or the selected item isn’t a Body, the tool instead prompts you to click a Body directly in the CATIA specification tree.
Why does the tool ask me to select a Body instead of just using my current selection?
- Exactly one item must be selected, an empty selection or a multi-selection is rejected
- The selected item must be of the Body type specifically, geometrical sets, sketches, or other elements don’t qualify as the starting point
If the follow-up prompt is also cancelled or resolved with something other than a Body, the tool closes without deleting anything.
3.2 Confirmation
Before deleting anything, the tool asks you to confirm the exact Body name it’s about to remove, with a Yes/No choice. Choosing No, or dismissing the prompt, cancels the operation with no changes made. Choosing Yes proceeds to deletion.
This confirmation always appears once a valid Body has been identified, there’s no condition under which deletion happens silently.
3.3 What gets deleted
Once confirmed, the tool searches beneath the selected Body for every nested Body, Geometrical Set, and Sketch and deletes them together with the selected Body itself, as a single operation rather than one element at a time.
Special case, deleting the Part’s main body: CATIA’s main body can’t be deleted outright, so when the selected Body is the Part’s main body, DRY0061 excludes that top-level object from the delete set automatically. Everything nested beneath it, child bodies, geometrical sets, sketches, is still removed in full, and the main body itself is refreshed afterward so the Part reflects the change immediately. In every other case (a non-main Body), the selected Body and all of its nested content are deleted together.
4. Examples
Example 1, Deleting a Body with nested Boolean children
A Body was built up through several Boolean operations, picking up two child bodies and a geometrical set of construction geometry along the way. Selecting the parent Body and confirming deletion removes all four elements, the parent, both children, and the geometrical set, in one action, leaving no orphaned features in the tree.
Key points:
- Nesting depth doesn’t matter, the search covers everything beneath the selected Body, not just its immediate children
- Sketches referenced within that branch are removed along with the bodies and geometrical sets
Example 2, Deleting the Part’s main body
A Part’s main body has accumulated several Boolean child bodies over the course of a design that’s since been superseded. Selecting the main body and confirming deletion clears every one of those children, but the main body itself remains in the tree, refreshed and empty, since CATIA does not allow the main body to be deleted outright.
Key points:
- This is the expected outcome, not a partial failure, the main body is a permanent feature of a Part
- Everything the main body had accumulated through Boolean operations is still fully removed
5. Troubleshooting
”User not found. Please login and try again.”
The tool could not identify the logged-in user at startup. Log out of the DRYCAD Suite, log back in, and relaunch.
”CATIA is not open. Please open CATIA and try again.”
The tool launched but could not find a running CATIA V5 process. Make sure CATIA is fully loaded before clicking the CommandBar button.
”Invalid Workspace”
The active document is not a Part. DRY0061 only operates on Part documents. Switch to or open a Part in CATIA, then relaunch.
The confirmation prompt never appears
Check the following:
- Exactly one Body must be selected, either before launch or when prompted afterward. Multiple selected items, no selection, or a non-Body selection all fall through without confirming
- If prompted to select a Body directly in CATIA, cancelling that selection or picking something other than a Body ends the operation silently, with nothing deleted
Fewer elements were removed than expected
Only Bodies, Geometrical Sets, and Sketches nested beneath the selected Body are included. Other element types are left untouched by design, and are not considered part of the deleted branch.
The main body disappeared entirely instead of just its children
This should not happen, CATIA does not permit the main body of a Part to be deleted, and DRY0061 excludes it from the delete set for exactly that reason. If the main body itself is missing after a deletion, treat it as unexpected behavior rather than the documented case in Section 3.3.
6. Version History
| Version | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0.0 | 2026-06 | Initial release |
DRY0061, Deep Body Delete | DRYCAD Solutions | v1.0.0