In the PWB it is possible to open on demand only certain selected nodes of the PDM structure in CATIA.
This may be useful when you only need to load a specific set of nodes from a heavy model, but would like to save it in context of the top assembly.
Firstly, open the assembly in the PDM structure window via the query tool, and expand the structure.
Then, instead of loading the complete structure with “Open” from the top assembly, it is possible to select any number of nodes (CATPart and/or CATProduct) in the tree and run the action “Open in Context” from the contextual menu (right click).
The complete PDM structure gets reduced to only the structure which contains the selected nodes and their parent node. This reduced structure is then opened to CATIA. The documents not selected for partial opening will be shown in the tree but their geometry will not be loaded*.
* However, if these ‘other’ documents have previously been opened in CATIA and their file is in your cache folder their geometry will also be loaded. They will be displayed as new documents, ‘not in PDM’. If the structure is saved these documents will be prompted to be saved as new references in the PLM. It is not recommended to save these. Instead, please close and reopen the structure normally if you need to make changes.