LiveLink™ for Inventor® Updates

For users of LiveLink™ for Inventor®, COMSOL Multiphysics® software version 5.3a brings updated tutorial models and extends support to new versions of certain CAD file formats. Read more about the LiveLink™ for Inventor® updates below.

Updated Tutorial Model: Electrical Heating in a Busbar

This tutorial model now transfers material selections assigned to components in the Inventor® assembly over to the COMSOL Multiphysics® software automatically. After synchronization, the selections are used to define materials on the geometry in the COMSOL Multiphysics® model. User-defined selections in the Inventor® assembly are also synchronized and used for assigning boundary conditions in the analysis. A parametric sweep over two-dimensional parameters in the Inventor® assembly has been included to study the influence of the geometry on the physics phenomena, shown with a Table Surface plot in the results.

Screenshots of the updated Electrical Heating in a Busbar model using LiveLink™ for Inventor®.

The selections defined in the COMSOL Selections window inside the Inventor® software are available after synchronization to define the boundary settings in the COMSOL Multiphysics® model.

The selections defined in the COMSOL Selections window inside the Inventor® software are available after synchronization to define the boundary settings in the COMSOL Multiphysics® model.

Updated Tutorial Model: Pacemaker Electrode

This tutorial now uses selections defined on the geometry in the Inventor® part file as an input to the boundary conditions when setting up the analysis inside the COMSOL Multiphysics® software. Defining selections in the Inventor® part file results in a faster and more robust workflow when performing geometric parameter sweeps and optimization of geometric parameters.

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 V30.0
  • ACIS®: (.sat, .sab, .asat, .asab) up to R25, 2018 1.0
  • AutoCAD® (.dwg, .dxf) up to 2017
  • CATIA® V5 up to 2017
  • PTC Creo Parametric™ up to 4.0
Write to File
  • Parasolid®: (.x_t, x_b) V30.0

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, AutoCAD, 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. CATIA is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries. Parasolid is a trademark or registered trademark of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. PTC, Creo, and Creo Parametric are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.