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LiveLink™ for Inventor®

Run COMSOL® Simulations with Inventor® Designs

The LiveLink™ for Inventor® add-on to COMSOL Multiphysics® delivers connectivity tools between the two programs so you can efficiently integrate simulation into your design workflow. Inventor® is a premier CAD solution for 3D design and product data management. When used together with multiphysics simulation, it provides a powerful tool for product design, evaluation, and optimization. Using LiveLink™ for Inventor®, you can leverage the functionality of COMSOL Multiphysics® to better understand how your Inventor® design performs in its intended operating environment and accurately evaluate the impact of essentially any physical effect and its interactions.

There are several ways to use LiveLink™ for Inventor® to match your workflow, starting with simply running both programs at once, side by side. Alternatively, you can run COMSOL Multiphysics® simulations directly from Inventor® with the one-window interface functionality. If your team has a design engineer using Inventor® and a simulation engineer using COMSOL Multiphysics®, they can work together using the Offline Synchronization feature.

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The COMSOL Multiphysics UI overlaid on an Inventor UI with a bracket model in both Graphics windows.

Features and Functionality in LiveLink™ for Inventor®

The link between Inventor® and COMSOL Multiphysics® is flexible for your design workflow and modeling needs.

A close-up view of the Model Builder with the LiveLink for Inventor node highlighted and a busbar model in the Graphics window.

Synchronize CAD Geometries in Inventor® and COMSOL Multiphysics®

LiveLink™ for Inventor® enables synchronization between your COMSOL® model geometry and the corresponding Inventor® CAD file. LiveLink™ for Inventor® ensures that design changes are propagated automatically, eliminating the need to import and export your designs each time they are updated. When synchronizing the geometry between the two programs, material and physics definitions as well as boundary conditions remain associated with their respective CAD entity, even when a design has changed. LiveLink™ for Inventor® also keeps track of the synchronized file's name and path, as well as the configuration and display state, to prevent synchronizing an incorrect document.

The LiveLink™ for Inventor® functionality includes several options for importing your geometry into COMSOL Multiphysics® from Inventor®. The length unit can be taken from the CAD document (the default option) or COMSOL®. The objects that you import from Inventor® will include solids, surfaces, curves, and points, but you can choose to exclude any of these if it is not applicable to the simulation.

A close-up view of the LiveLink for Inventor settings and a pacemaker model in the Graphics window.

Offline Synchronization

Syncing files between the two programs is possible even when the programs are installed on different computers. Using the LiveLink™ add-in inside LiveLink™ for Inventor®, you can save a synchronization file that may contain one or several versions of a geometry. You can then load this synchronization file into a COMSOL Multiphysics® model to compute parametric sweeps. This is especially useful in organizations where the two different software packages are used by different individuals.

In addition to being installed by the COMSOL Multiphysics® installer, the LiveLink™ add-in can be installed with the COMSOL Client installer for running simulation apps. This enables the same process for apps: preparing designs, saving offline synchronization files, and loading the files into simulation apps for analysis.

A close-up view of the LiveLink for Inventor settings and a bracket model in the Graphics window.

Synchronize Parameters, Materials, and Selections

The LiveLink™ for Inventor® synchronization capabilities include design parameters, materials, and selections created in Inventor®. The COMSOL Multiphysics tab installed into the Inventor® user interface provides the tools for setting up the selections on the CAD design and configuring which parameters to synchronize over. The user interface in COMSOL Multiphysics® provides an informative settings window to keep track of the names of the synchronized parameters and selections, which then become available for use when setting up the simulation in COMSOL Multiphysics®.

Inventor® design parameters can be iteratively accessed and updated via COMSOL Multiphysics®, facilitating design parameter optimization studies and parametric sweeps to evaluate the effects of properties such as the diameter of a hole or the thickness of a component in your design. Design parameters that are controlled by relations in the Inventor® design can still be accessed in a read-only way and used when setting up a simulation, such as when defining boundary conditions or mesh element size settings.

Selections, which are defined on the CAD design inside Inventor®, can greatly reduce the time it takes to set up the simulation, for example, by automatically collecting all domains with the same material properties into one easily accessible selection. Selections also come in handy when you want to make sure that the physics settings remain attached to the correct domains and boundaries as the topology of the geometry changes while running a parametric sweep or optimization study.

A close-up view of the Inventor UI showing the COMSOL Multiphysics tab and a busbar model in the Graphics window.

One-Window Interface

As an alternative to working side by side in both Inventor® and COMSOL Multiphysics®, LiveLink™ for Inventor® gives you the option to set up and run 3D COMSOL Multiphysics® simulations from within Inventor®. To access this one-window interface functionality, you can simply start a new simulation from the COMSOL Multiphysics tab that is added to Inventor®. Here, you find the tools for meshing, defining the physics settings, solving, and evaluating and plotting results, using the familiar icons from COMSOL Multiphysics®.

Streamline Geometries for Simulation

COMSOL® model geometries created from an imported CAD geometry often require some manipulation to reduce the complexity of the mesh and improve the efficiency of the simulation in COMSOL Multiphysics®. To ensure that geometries can be reliably modified and combined with geometry created in COMSOL Multiphysics® after import, LiveLink™ for Inventor® provides the Parasolid® geometry engine with functionality for geometry simplification, including automatic repair and defeaturing. Its full functionality is detailed on the CAD Import Module page.

Virtual geometry operations are also available with COMSOL Multiphysics®. These operations provide yet another method for preventing fine design details from creating regions with unnecessarily dense meshes. By using this functionality, you create a virtual geometry for meshing where you exclude selected features of the CAD design. A distinct advantage is that the original curvature of the design is maintained, which may improve simulation accuracy for certain applications, such as analyzing stresses in structural contact.

A close-up view of a sliver CAD geometry showing the results of the mesh before and after repairing
A close-up view of a CAD geometry shown in a side-by-side comparison with and without a groove and hole.
A close-up view of a CAD geometry shown in a side-by-side comparison with and without fillets.
A close-up view of a CAD geometry shown in a side-by-side comparison with and without capped faces.
The user interface of a Bike Frame Analyzer app with input fields on the left and the Graphics window on the right.

Simulation Applications

You can combine the capabilities of the Application Builder, built into COMSOL Multiphysics®, with LiveLink™ for Inventor® to create simulation apps that analyze Inventor® designs. Your Inventor® design teams can then run these apps either as standalone, compiled applications on their desktops or through the COMSOL Server™ application management product. All that is needed to run simulation apps is the COMSOL Client for Windows®, which you can download for free and install. Doing so also installs the COMSOL Multiphysics tab in the Inventor® user interface, which you can use to either launch compiled apps directly or connect to COMSOL Server™ to launch apps from there.

Supported Formats for File Import and Export

Note that not all file formats are supported on all operating systems; for details, see the system requirements. The STL, PLY, and 3MP surface mesh formats are supported by COMSOL Multiphysics® without add-on products.

File Format Extension Version Import Export
ACIS® .sat, .sab, .asat, .asab Up to 2024 1.0 (import),
R4, R7, 2016 1.0 (export)
AutoCAD® .dwg 2.5–2024
AutoCAD® DXF™ .dxf 2.5–2024
IGES .igs, .iges Up to 5.3
Inventor® assemblies .iam 11–2024
Inventor® parts .ipt 6–2024
NX™ .prt Up to 2306
Parasolid® .x_t, .xmt_txt, .x_b, .xmt_bin Up to V36.0
PTC Creo Parametric™ .prt, .asm 1.0–10.0
PTC Pro/ENGINEER® .prt, .asm 16 to Wildfire® 5.0
SOLIDWORKS® .sldprt, .sldasm 98–2024
STEP .step AP203, AP214, AP242 (import),
AP203 (export)
Autodesk and Inventor are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see http://www.comsol.com/tm. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.

Every business and every simulation need is different.

In order to fully evaluate whether or not the COMSOL Multiphysics® software will meet your requirements, you need to contact us. By talking to one of our sales representatives, you will get personalized recommendations and fully documented examples to help you get the most out of your evaluation and guide you to choose the best license option to suit your needs.

Just click on the "Contact COMSOL" button, fill in your contact details and any specific comments or questions, and submit. You will receive a response from a sales representative within one business day.

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