CAE (FE) Import & Export Formats
The Import of CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) formats for FE (Finite Elements) supports some of the more common formats available. The intent of these formats is to allow the geometry information (not solution data) to be transferred from one application to another as well as to allow reverse conversion of CAE results data (in the form of a modified geometry) to be read back into CAD applications. The following formats are supported:
NAS / BDF / DAT : These are Nastran formats of either fixed (short or long) or floating format. Since there are a large number of pre- and post- processors that work with these files, some customized formats may exist that are not fully supported. Only Shell and Solid elements are currently supported.
POLY : This is an Ansys format (PolyFlow) and similar to the Patran Format.
GEO / GEOM : This is the Ensight (Gold) format and supports large (binary) files. Both shell and solid elements are supported.
OUT ; This is a commonly used Patran format. All basic components are supported though some of the features can cause the import/export to slow down.
GMSH / MSH : This is the Gmsh format and supports ascii and binary formats for V1.1 and 2.0.
CFE : This is a less commonly used format that was included based on a customer request.
MSH* : This is the Fluent format which is available for export only. The reason for inclusion of this format was to support export to Ansys CFX compatible files for cases that exceed 100M elements which exceed the Patran OUT format.