LiveLink™ for Inventor® Updates

For users of LiveLink™ for Inventor®, COMSOL Multiphysics® software version 5.3 brings improvements to the synchronized selections between programs and extends support to new versions of certain CAD file formats. Read more about the LiveLink™ for Inventor® updates below.

More Efficient Setup of Selections on CAD Assemblies

LiveLink™ for Inventor® now automatically supports the addition of selections, defined on an Inventor® part file, to the list of selections that is synchronized with the assembly that includes the part. In other words, selections are now automatically loaded from the component files into the CAD assembly and they are correctly assigned during synchronization of the assembly. For example, consider a CAD assembly that contains seven instances of a part file that has a selection defined as a single face (see image). After synchronizing the CAD assembly, the selection in the COMSOL Multiphysics® model will contain seven faces, one for each instance of the part. To set up the selection in previous versions, the seven faces had to be selected manually on the CAD assembly in the Inventor® software.

Three images that illustrate synchronizing selections via LiveLink for Inventor. The face selection defined for the ball joint part (left) is automatically loaded for the helicopter swashplate assembly (center) in the Inventor® software. This is then directly synchronized to the COMSOL Multiphysics® model (right), such that the synchronized selection contains all instances of the original face selection.
The face selection defined for the ball joint part (left) is automatically loaded for the helicopter swashplate assembly (center) in the Inventor® software. This is then directly synchronized to the COMSOL Multiphysics® model (right), such that the synchronized selection contains all instances of the original face selection.

Updated Support for New CAD File Format Versions

The CAD file import and export functionality has been extended to support new versions for the following file formats:

Read from File

  • Parasolid®: (.x_t, .xmt_txt, .x_b, .xmt_bin) up to V29.1
  • ACIS®: (.sat, .sab, .asat, .asab) up to R25, 2017 1.0
  • Inventor® assemblies: (.iam) versions 11, 2008–2017
  • Inventor® parts: (.ipt) versions 6–11, 2008–2017
  • SOLIDWORKS®: (.sldprt, .sldasm) versions 98–2017
  • NX™: (.prt) up to version 11

Write to File

  • Parasolid®: (.x_t, x_b) V29.1

You can view a complete list of supported CAD file formats in the CAD Specification Chart under the "Read from File, CAD" and "Write to File" sections.

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, and Inventor are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. ACIS is a registered trademark of Spatial Corporation. Parasolid and NX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. SOLIDWORKS is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Corp. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.