A Quick Look at the Ansys Developer Portal

One aspect of the Ansys family of products is that they do what users need in most use cases, they are efficient to use, and automation capabilities are built in. But, every once in a while, you want to take one of these wonderful tools beyond what they can do out of the box and connect it to other software, automate tasks, or even add capability. The developers and support experts at Ansys get this and know that power users need easy access to take their Ansys usage to the next level.

In fact, its such an important part of the Ansys usage ecosystem that they have a special website for automation, customization, and integration called the Ansys Developer Portal or developer.ansys.com.

As someone who jealously hid my Ansys Programmer’s Guide from back in the day when writing FORTRAN or APDL scripts for the original Ansys program was all we had, I’ve watched this site grow and evolve from some Python documentation to a giant resource for almost every Ansys product. It is now its own world with documentation, a forum, training material, and more. Much of this

This resource is so useful, it’s worth taking some time to dig in and explore what is there. Before we get started, here are a few things you should be aware of:

• I’ll be honest, it’s not organized the way I would do it, but if you take the time to poke around a bit, you can find what you need. Some people took a lot of time to put together a lot of otherwise unconnected content, so even if you might categorize it differently, be thankful someone put it in one place.
• This started as a site to support PyAnsys, and it still has a strong Python focus. It is really for supporting the documentation that is not part of Ansys help. So, for example, you won’t find the Ansys Mechanical APLD UPF docs here, those are in help.
• If you want full access, you need an Ansys user account.
• This is provided as a community resource. Set your expectations for that rather than official documentation.
• The site is still evolving. Come back often to discover new, wonderful things.

I used the earlier version of this resource when I wrote a Python tool to convert Ansys Mechanical results into a 3D printable file. It was invaluable then, and has only improved in the past two or so years.

Let’s take a look and see what we can find.

Dig in By Product

The two-edged sword of modern Ansys is that there are so many products, so you can get a bit crazy trying to find the resource you want for the product you are working with. They recognize this and have a page that links to pages that group information by product family. It is called the “Ansys Developer Product Guide.”

Here is some useful information about this part of the site:

• It includes a Glossary. It’s not comprehensive, but if you are not a full-time developer or if English is your second language, it can be handy. The part I use the most is the Acronum list near the bottom.
• The list of product families is on the left of the screen. Once you click on a family, you will get a list of products on the right of the screen, and then the products and what documentation, if any, are listed in the middle.
• It doesn’t open links in a new tab, so I right-mouse-button and click “Open link in new tab” to keep the product page there as I explore.
• Some products don’t have developer documentation or even a programming interface. Those are listed as well, so you don’t waste time looking for something that isn’t there.

Shared Knowledge in the Form of Guides, Articles, Tutorials, and Webinars

The section of the site called “Knowledge Base” is a collection of links to content that is not what you think of as “documentation.”

It includes:

• Recources
  • Articles: Posts they have created to dig down into specific topics.
  • Guidelines: Information on how to contribute to the site
• Tutorials and Courses (Classes on the Ansys Learning Hub)
  • PyAnsys Training
  • Intro to Python
  • Getting Started with PyFluent
  • Getting Started with PyMAPDL
  • Introduction to APDL Scripting
• On-Demand Webinars
  • This list changes with time, so check back.

Developer Documentation For Supported Products

If you click on the Documentation button on the Ansys Developer Portal home page or the menu at the top of every page in the portal, you will get to the Developer Documentation site. You will find links to everything from PyAnsys to the API for Ansys Zemax.

I’ve found that sometimes the links here are different than what is in product-oriented section. There are also links here to the official documentation for fully supported APIs, but not all of them. For example, the Ansys Mechanical sub-section just covers Mechanical scripting and PyMechanical and not APDL or UPFs.

Did you know that Ansys Sound has an API? It has three documented ones and its own PyAnsys API.

A Blog Just for Ansys Coding

The Ansys Developer Forum would not be a full site without its own blog, and it has one. There just isn’t a menu button for it. To get there, go to developer.ansys.com/blog or scroll down on the home page and click, “More articles.” There is a LOT here. The Cheat Sheets are worth a visit on their own. They have examples of the most common calls you make in different Python interfaces for Ansys products. People have posted Tips & Tricks, tutorials, and a ton of examples.

Ansys Developer Forum: The True Power of the Ansys Developer Portal

There is a lot of developer documentation out there. But sometimes you can’t find what you need, or you need a very specific situation explained, or something is just not working right. Or maybe you had a breakthrough you want to share with other users. That is what the Forum is for, and it is invaluable.

It is actually a seperate platform, discuss.ansys.com, and you will need to create a login there. This is different from the Ansys user forum at innovationspace.ansys.com/forum/

It is pretty active and a lot of knowledgeable people, including some Ansys support people, hang out there to help and share.

Links to Related Resources

If you are working on some customization, automation, or capability enhancements, you may find some of the links on the Ansys Developer Portal useful. Here is a list of the ones I clicked on a few times:

• Ansys Help: This is at the top menu and goes to the online help. Still an amazing resource and even easier to search these days.
• GitHub: Also on the top menu, this takes you to the open-source repository for all the PyAnsys stuff, plus a bunch of other open-source resources and documentation. There are 185 repositories in the GitHub Ansys Organization. There is a lot here, some of which is even non-developer content.
• Careers at Ansys: Now I don’t use this one… I’m a channel partner principal… but if I wasn’t and I just did something super cool with Ansys and my own code, I would be looking to see if Ansys has an opening to put that skill to work.
• Events: They list on-demand webinars if you go to the Knowledge Base page and scroll down. There are a few good ones there, and look for more as they have time to add them.

Make a Great Resource Better – Participate

The strongest part of this portal is where you can make it better, the Forum. Don’t just ask questions, answer a few. And when you do something, you can share it in the forum. I may show up in a search someday and save another Ansys user hours of trying to figure out something you already know how to do.

Also, when you do contribute, take the time to follow the golden forum rule of posting the way you wish others would post. Take the time to format properly, ask detailed questions, be respectful, and provide as much background and examples as you can. I wrote an article back in 2014 on this very topic: “why does no1 respon to my request for help” as a guide to getting help on the still functioning Xansys forum. I think it is still valid today, maybe even more so since social media kind of messed up the expectations for behavior on forums.

PADT Can Help With Customization, Automation, or Interfaces

Using the tools that the Ansys Developer Portal supports can make a huge difference in improving the efficiency and capability of your Ansys implementation. And, if you ask me, it’s a lot of fun. That was my main technical role before we grew at PADT and added employees who are better at it than I was. But writing code is not for everyone, there may be some more complicated software needs than simple scripting, or you may not have the time to do it yourself.

That is why companies from around the world come to PADT with their Ansys customization and automation needs. We can do everything from creating a standalone vertical application that uses Ansys solvers to a simple script to automate something. We are experts at connecting other codes and in the more complicated creation and verification of User Programmable Functions and User Defined Features. We can also train you and your team to do it yourself.

So give us a call or shoot us an email and let’s talk about your Ansys customization needs.