The interface works in both Plug-in and Pseudo-Reader mode.

See the Product & CAD Configuration Manager for usage information.

Support

At the time of release, detailed version support information for the Linux and Windows platforms is accessible via Geometry Interface Support.

For information about post-release CAD system compatibility with Ansys Workbench, see the Platform Support section of the Ansys Website.

Document import supported by interface: *.dwg, *.dxf

Notations

Entities which belong to layers which are invisible, frozen or turned off will be skipped during import.

AutoCAD mesh bodies, of type Polygon Mesh and Polyface Mesh, are not supported for import. Note that when exporting Revit models to DWG the default solid type is Polyface. To generate a DWG file with Workbench importable bodies, it is required that the Revit user select "ACIS Solids" in the Solids tab of the DWG/DFX Export Setup dialog.

Body Arrays  —  Geometry created by using the AutoCAD "Array" command will not automatically be imported into Ansys Workbench. To make such bodies importable: (a) load the drawing file into AutoCAD, (b) select the array, and (c) issue the "Explode" command.

Color Processing  —  AutoCAD bodies can be automatically grouped in Named Selections based upon their color by adding the keyword "Color" to the Named Selection Key list. The resultant selection groups will be named with the form, Color:R.G.B. Here R, G and B are values ranging from 0 to 255, which represent the amount of color saturation of Red, Green and Blue color components. For example Color:0.0.0 is black, Color:255.255.255 is white, and Color:255.0.0 is red.

Within the Mechanical application, body colors can be visually altered to match what is displayed in the AutoCAD session by executing the following steps:

Layer Processing  —  AutoCAD entities can be automatically assigned to Named Selections based upon their layer assignment. This can be accomplished by enabling the Named Selection preference, and adding the keyword "Layer" to the Named Selection Key list. Subsequent attach/refresh actions will import with selection groups named with the form, Layer:<AutoCAD Layer Name>.

Localization Considerations  —  To change the Ansys Ribbon to match Workbench localization follow these steps:

Pseudo-Reader Attach/Refresh  —  When importing and no active session of AutoCAD is running, Ansys Workbench will automatically launch the last run version of AutoCAD for the current user account. Import will fail if the current user has never launched AutoCAD. In this case launching the CAD system one time will resolve the failure. When DWG TrueView is present and has been run prior to the most recent execution of AutoCAD, pseudo-reader attach will fail. In this case, launching AutoCAD one time will correct the problem.

Uninstall Considerations  —  When the AutoCAD associative interface is configured for a non-admin user the Ansys ribbon tab will remain after the product is uninstalled. To avoid this the non administrative user should manually unconfigure the product prior to removing the installation, using the Product & CAD Configuration Manager.

Units  —  AutoCAD does maintain an internal length unit scale factor. However, by default the length unit is undefined for all layouts Block Table Records such as Model Space and Paper Space. This conflicts with the model unit specification within the drawing file. To reconcile the potential discrepancy the geometry interface will interpret AutoCAD models as if they have the same length unit system specified within Ansys Workbench, with no conversion attempted.

Limitations

The following limitation is specific to the Ansys 2024 R2 Associative Geometry Interface to AutoCAD. There is a known library conflict with earlier releases of this Plug-In, which causes the 2024 R2 Ansys Plug-In to fail loading into AutoCAD when a previous version of the Plug-In is configured to load into AutoCAD.

Use the following procedure to enable these versions to be loaded side-by-side in AutoCAD.