Isight & The Simulia Execution Engine

Isight integrates various software applications, engineering models, and data sources into an automated workflow that eliminates the need for manual intervention. Its drag-and-drop interface lets users create simulation workflows, ensuring seamless data transfer, fewer errors, and higher efficiency.

Isight is a process integration and design exploration tool that allows you to automate any common workflow into a repeatable "SimFlow." Linking to your CAD, simulation, and other software, Isight can run any workflow through DOE/optimization processes to help you find better designs.

Isight solves the problem of automating, integrating, and optimizing complex engineering simulation workflows. It allows users to link multiple software tools and analyses into a single process, reducing manual effort and human error. By managing design exploration and optimization efficiently, Isight helps engineers find better-performing, cost-effective solutions faster.

No. Abaqus or other solvers handle any physics. Isight automates the workflow around those tools and drives design exploration.

A SimFlow is the visual representation of a workflow that can be built in Isight. Components are connected in Isight to pass parameters, execute tools, and collect and analyze results.

No coding is required for most SimFlows, but the capabilities of Isight can be extended with scripting if needed. Scripting can be used to include complex operations to the parameters of your model by adding a script component, extend the functionality of a component by adding prologue/epilogue scripts, or make advanced customizations to a model using the Isight SDK.

Typical users include design analysts, simulation engineers, and optimization specialists seeking to improve product performance and reduce development time. However, Isight is not limited to engineering tasks and can be used to optimize any repetitive workflow, including cost analysis, reporting, or data processing.

Isight automates design workflows, reducing manual effort and development time. Its optimization tools help identify high-performance designs across multiple objectives, while its integration capabilities connect diverse engineering software for a seamless simulation process.

Yes, Isight includes comprehensive Design of Experiments (DOE) capabilities. It provides a range of built-in DOE methods including full factorial, Latin hypercube, and optimal space-filling designs to systematically explore design spaces and understand variable influences. These DOE tools integrate seamlessly with simulation workflows, enabling efficient sensitivity studies and model calibration.

Isight offers a wide variety of optimization algorithms to suit different problem types. These include gradient-based methods for continuous, smooth problems; evolutionary and genetic algorithms for complex, non-linear, or discontinuous spaces; and specialized methods such as simulated annealing, particle swarm optimization, and response surface–based techniques. Users can also combine multiple optimizers in hybrid or multi-objective strategies to balance performance and robustness.

Yes, Isight supports multiobjective optimization and tradeoff studies. It can generate Pareto fronts that illustrate the balance between competing objectives, helping users identify optimal design compromises.

Yes, Isight includes tools for Monte Carlo simulation and Six Sigma analysis. Users can define statistical variations in input parameters to assess the robustness and reliability of a design under uncertainty.

Kriging, Radial Basis Function, Response Surface, and Orthogonal Polynomial models are available for when configuring an approximation.

Isight includes postprocessing tools for analyzing and visualizing, including statistical analysis, correlation mapping, response surface plots, and self-organizing maps. Users can create customized reports, generate sensitivity analyses, and compare multiple design scenarios using interactive charts. Real-time monitoring and visualization help identify trends and guide design decisions efficiently.

SOMs are used to visualize and cluster high-dimensional run data. It groups similar simulations results together on a 2D grid making it easier to identify patterns, infeasible regions, and design groupings.

Yes, Isight stores run histories so you can resume, mine results, and avoid rerunning.

Isight can run on both desktop and server environments. Individual users often run Isight locally for model development and testing, while larger teams deploy it on servers through the SIMULIA Execution Engine (SEE) to distribute and manage simulations across multiple machines. This flexibility allows organizations to scale from single-user workflows to enterprise-level optimization networks.

SEE extends Isight to support multi-user, distributed, server-side execution, providing centralized management of execution resources, libraries, a results database, and web access to jobs and results.

Yes. The SIMULIA Execution Engine (SEE) includes WebTop, a web-based interface that lets users access, execute, and monitor Isight simulation models from any browser, streamlining design study management without installing additional software.

Isight and the SIMULIA Execution Engine (SEE) run on 64-bit Windows and Linux platforms. For complete version and configuration details, refer to the official SIMULIA Supported Platform Policy.

Isight uses SIMULIA licensing. Available capabilities may be accessed via tokens or credits depending on configuration and version.

Token consumption depends on the components used and the number of parallel evaluations and cores you run. Usage can be adjusted to balance time, computing resources, and license availability.

Yes, Isight is designed with an open architecture that supports integration with a variety of third-party applications, including commercial CAD, CAE, and PLM software. Commonly used applications such as Abaqus, CATIA, ANSYS, LS-DYNA, and STAR-CCM+ can be directly linked into Isight workflows.

Isight ships with a library of components for popular CAD/CAE and utilities; check the Application Components lists for current coverage.

Yes, there’s a SOLIDWORKS/SOLIDWORKS Simulation component for parameter updates, model execution, and results extraction. Additionally, Isight can automatically drive SOLIDWORKS to Abaqus through the SOLIDWORKS–Abaqus Associative Interface (SAI). Once the interface is properly configured and licensed, Isight can coordinate data transfer and model updates between the two applications without manual intervention.

Yes, you can connect in-house codes or tools to Isight using components such as Data Exchanger, OS Command, and Simcode. The Data Exchanger component enables flexible data transfer between files or databases, while the OS Command component can run any external executable or script directly from within a workflow. The Simcode component combines these capabilities. It is essentially an OS Command component wrapped with two Data Exchanger components to manage input and output automatically, providing a streamlined way to integrate custom solvers or in-house codes.

You can use the Script component to create automation scripts in Jython or DynamicJava. Jython is the recommended option for new scripts, while DynamicJava is included primarily for backward compatibility with older workflows. Components, like Abaqus, can also access pre- or post-processing Python scripts to be executed with the model.

Yes, you can map parameters to cells, read results back, and execute Excel macros directly.

Many common solvers are supported via components. See the Application component list for available simulation components.

Yes, Isight can parse text, CSV, and XML outputs. Text and CSV files can be read using the Data Exchanger or SIMCode components by defining the appropriate file format, while XML files are best handled with the XML Parser component, which uses XPath expressions to extract or write parameter values directly from XML structures.

Isight saves results to local files you can reopen and analyze. The SIMULIA Execution collaboration.

Isight supports parallel execution to accelerate runtime and obtain your results faster.

Yes, Isight includes its own internal database for storing simulation results, parameters, and workflow data, which can be queried and reused in subsequent runs. In addition to this internal database, Isight can integrate with external databases through custom components or APIs, and teams often export data to Excel or CSV for reporting. This allows both local workflow management and flexible enterprise-level data integration.

Isight is available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as 3DEXPERIENCE Process Composer, where it can integrate with the various CAD and simulation tools while also giving access to cloud compute options. Process Composer, together with Results Analytics, delivers capabilities comparable to Isight, including process automation, Design of Experiments (DOE), and optimization. It provides a unified, collaborative environment that integrates simulation workflows directly within the platform’s data and lifecycle management framework.

Choose Isight when you need to automate workflows involving desktop or third-party tools, or when you already have established Isight processes. If your organization is transitioning to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Process Composer offers an integrated, collaborative solution for similar capabilities.

Before your first Isight project, clearly define the design objectives and metrics you want to study. Ensure your simulation models and data sources are accessible and can be automated, and gather any input files or scripts needed for execution. Starting with a small, simple workflow helps validate the setup before scaling to more complex studies. If you are new to Isight, consider training or Mentoring with GoEngineer.

A good first Design of Experiments (DOE) is a space-filling approach, such as an Optimal Latin Hypercube. This type of DOE efficiently explores the design space, providing broad coverage of variables before moving on to optimization or more targeted studies.

Isight validates surrogate models by evaluating cross-validation or holdout error metrics to assess predictive accuracy. Additionally, results are compared against selected runs of the full solver to ensure reliability before using the surrogate for design exploration or optimization. This two-step validation helps maintain confidence in surrogate-based decisions.

Yes. Surrogate models created in Isight, such as Response Surface Models (RSM), Radial Basis Function (RBF), and Elliptical Basis Functions (EBF) approximations can be exported to Excel. This allows non-Isight users to perform quick "what-if" analyses and share results without requiring the full software environment.

Yes, GoEngineer can map your SimFlow setup, including relevant components and parallel execution based on available computing resources, and provide a token usage estimate. GoEngineer services

Yes, we can implement a production ready SimFlow, transfer the method, and help with SEE setup. GoEngineer Services