System Requirements, Prerequisites and Limitations

You should be aware of the following system requirements, prerequisites and limitations when using SolidWorks Associative Interface

Related Topics
Supported Versions of Software

System requirements

The Abaqus component must fulfill the following system and software requirements:

Operating system
Windows 64-bit operating system.
Abaqus/CAE release
Supported version of Abaqus.
Isight release
Isight 2017 or later.
SolidWorks release
Supported version of SolidWorks.
SolidWorks Associative interface release
SolidWorks Associative Interface plug-in for the installed supported release of SolidWorks.

SolidWorks Associative Interface Prerequisites

You must satisfy the following prerequisites before you use the Abaqus component for SolidWorks Associative Interface

  • An environment variable named SW2ABQ_PLUGIN_DLL_PATH must be created and it’s value must be the full path of SolidWorks Associative Interface DLL

    For example:

    • Environment variable name: SW2ABQ_PLUGIN_DLL_PATH
    • Environment variable value: D:\Software\Sw2AbqPlugin_V1.7_64\Sw2AbqPlugin_64.dll

  • SolidWorks and Abaqus software must be installed on the machine(s) running Isight Design Gateway and SEE Station.
  • No SolidWorks instance should be running beforehand on the machine where Isight Design Gateway or SEE Station is launched.

General Limitations

  • When you choose the SolidWorks files to be exported to Abaqus/CAE in the GUI, file parameters for necessary SolidWorks files are automatically created. And when you remove the SolidWorks files in the GUI, corresponding file parameters are automatically deleted. You should not create or delete file parameters for SolidWorks geometry files directly from Isight Files Tab or by any other ways (e.g. scripting).
  • You must not change the destination file name of file parameters represnting SolidWorks geometry files. Doing so will interfere with the working of SAI and it may not work as expected.
  • You must provide all the related SolidWorks geometry file path(s) while configuring Abaqus component to use SAI. The file name must be exactly identical to the files which were originally exported to Abaqus/CAE files.
  • If you are exporting a SolidWorks Assembly to Abaqus, SolidWorks application will be launched in GUI mode at runtime. It will shutdown automatically once the the geometry gets exported to Abaqus/CAE.