Installation and Usage Instructions

There are three options for installing inpRW. First, a packaged version with a convenient installer is available. The installer can be used to install inpRW to the 3DEXPERIENCE Python 3.7 interpreter.

Second, if you wish to install inpRW to a different Python interpreter, you can use pip to install inpRW from the .whl file.

Third, if you do not wish to install inpRW to a Python interpreter (or venv), you can simply extract the source files from the .whl and set the PYTHONPATH variable or modify sys.path prior to importing inpRW.

Option 1: Using install_to_3DEXPERIENCE.bat

inpRW can be easily installed to a 3DEXPERIENCE Python 3.7 interpreter using install_to_3DEXPERIENCE.bat. install_to_3DEXPERIENCE.bat will check for admin rights and relaunch the command if it does not have them, will open a file-browser so the user can specify the version folder of 3DEXPERIENCE (the script will then find the 3.7 python.exe for that installation), and will finally install numpy, scipy (requirements of inpRW) and inpRW.

Option 2: Install inpRW from .whl

If inpRW is to be installed and/or upgraded for a different Python installation, the command is

PYTHON -m pip install inpRW*.whl --upgrade

PYTHON should refer to the desired Python executable, which should be at least version 3.7. This is essentially what install.bat does, although that file performs some extra tasks like finding the specific Python interpreter used by the Keyword Edit feature of 3DEXPERIENCE.

Make sure pip is upgraded first, or there might be problems installing inpRW. The following command will work:

PYTHON -m pip install --upgrade pip

Option 3: Extract inpRW from .whl

If you do not want to install inpRW, you can instead extract all the files from inpRW*.whl to a directory; we’ll call it inpRW_src for this example. You will then need to tell the Python interpreter where to find the utility. You can do this in several ways; here are a few examples for Windows systems:

  • Set the PYTHONPATH variable to the inpRW_src directory. You can set this globally, or add the commands to a .bat file prior to calling the Python interpreter. Example: set PYTHONPATH=PATH_TO\inpRW_src

  • Modify sys.path to include the path to inpRW_src. This can be done in a Python script before importing inpRW. Example: sys.path.insert(0, 'PATH_TO\inpRW_src').

Calling inpRW

Have any Abaqus input file available and open a Python interpreter in the directory with the input file. Create an inpRW class object with the following commands:

import inpRW
inp = inpRW.inpRW('inputFileName.inp')
inp.parse()

Please see the API Reference for all the available functions and their syntax.

Using inpRW with Keyword Edit in 3DEXPERIENCE

Once inpRW has been installed to 3DEXPERIENCE, you can use inpRW with the Keyword Edit functionality of the Mechanical Scenario app. You’ll need to first write a Python script which will edit the input file, and then you can upload that file to 3DEXPERIENCE using the Keyword Edit tool. See the documentation for more details on Keyword Editing.

Here’s a brief video showing how to install and use inpRW with the Keyword Edit feature of 3DEXPERIENCE.