Getting your CAD geometries ready for FEA modeling is easier than ever with the CAD Import Module. It facilitates the reading of industry-standard formats such as STEP, IGES, ACIS® (SAT®) or Parasolid®. Extra add-ons support file formats for packages that have their own geometry kernel.
The CAD Import Module goes beyond just the reading of file formats. The interactive repair feature assures that imported geometries are mathematically correct for FEA modeling. And, in order to cut down on unnecessary details in your CAD geometries, defeaturing tools that remove fillets, small faces, sliver faces, as well as spikes or short edges are included.
The CAD Import Module also provides bidirectional interfaces to SolidWorks® and Autodesk® Inventor® that maintain associativity with these CAD systems. This means that geometric parameteric sweeps can be run using the COMSOL models, which result in automatically updating of the CAD geometry in the corresponding CAD system. Such parametric studies can also be run using clusters and can be set up directly from the user interface.
Bidirectional Interfaces supported by COMSOL
| Product | CAD Software | Supported Versions |
|---|---|---|
| CAD Import Module | SolidWorks | SolidWorks 2006-2008 |
| Autodesk Inventor | Autodesk Inventor 2009 |
File formats supported by COMSOL products
| Product | File Format (file extensions) | Supported Versions |
|---|---|---|
| COMSOL Multiphysics | STL (.stl) | |
| VRML (.wrl, .wml) | 1.0 | |
| DXF (.dxf) | up to R14 | |
| CAD Import Module1 | Parasolid (.x_t, .x_b) | up to V20 |
| SAT (.sat, .sab) | up to R18 | |
| STEP (.step, .stp) | AP203, AP214 | |
| IGES (.igs, .iges) | up to 5.3 | |
| CATIA V4 Import Module2 | CATIA V4 (.model) | 4.1.9 to 4.2.4 |
| CATIA V5 Import Module2 | CATIA V5 (.CATPart, .CATProduct) | R2 to R18 |
| Inventor Import Module2 | Autodesk Inventor part (.ipt) | 6 to 11, 2008 |
| Autodesk Inventor assembly (.iam) | 11, 2008 | |
| Pro/E Import Module2 | Pro/Engineer (.prt, .asm) | 16 to Wildfire |
| VDA-FS Import Module2 | VDA-FS (.vda) | 1 and 2 |
| AC/DC, RF, and/or MEMS Modules1 | GDS (.gds) | 2 |
| ODB++ (.xml) | XML-version | |
| NETEX-G (.asc) |
2Requires COMSOL Multiphysics and the CAD Import Module
Parasolid is a registered trademark of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc., +ScanFE is a trademark of Simpleware Ltd. SolidWorks is a registered trademark of SolidWorks Corporation. ACIS and SAT are registered trademarks of Spatial Corp. Other product or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.