Extract text from CATIA material catalogs (CATMATERIAL)
To convert CATMATERIAL material catalogs to another format, you need CATIA or other Cad software.
To convert other file formats to the "Material Library" file type, you need software like CATIA or a similar tool.
A .CATMATERIAL file is a proprietary material library created by Dassault Systèmes CATIA, primarily used in CATIA V5. These files function as databases that store physical properties (density, Young's modulus, thermal expansion) and visual attributes (textures, reflection settings) for applying realistic characteristics to 3D parts (CATPart) and assemblies.
The biggest obstacle with .CATMATERIAL files is their proprietary binary architecture. They are strictly locked to the CATIA ecosystem, meaning you cannot open them in standard image viewers, text editors, or even competing CAD software like SolidWorks or AutoCAD without complex bridging tools. Engineers often struggle to share material specifications with non-CAD users because the data is inaccessible without a costly license. Furthermore, version mismatch is common; a file saved in a newer V5 release often won't open in an older one.
To make this data usable outside of the engineering department, the best approach is conversion to document formats. For generating reports or Bills of Materials (BOM), convert the metadata to XLSX (Excel) or CSV. For documentation and compliance archiving, converting the property sheets to PDF is the standard workflow. If you need to migrate data to other PLM systems, XML is the preferred interchange target.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CATMATERIAL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted MODEL, CATPART and CGR files.
If you want to convert CATMATERIAL file to , you can use CATIA or similar software from the "Material Property Database" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to CATMATERIAL, try CATIA or another comparable tool in the "Material Property Database" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our CATMATERIAL converter.