The Converter is a stand alone program with a simple user interface that would ask the user for a file path name to an file and a path name where the resulting Pre file would be written. If the user did not provide a Pre file path the converter saves the data to a file with the same file path name as the input file but with a .pre extension replacing the The original extension. This converter can be called in Main but Main is not required to run the program.
The file converter had the ability to convert a House output ( *.hou ) file to a prep input file and the ability to convert an ANSYS® *.cdb file to the Prep input. The converter has been tested to be accurate in many conversion. However, correct conversion is not guaranteed for any model. The user should always check the output model before any simulation is preformed
The Hou to Pre Converter allowed the user that had an Hou file from another computer to convert data from that file into a prep file. This conversion allows the user to load the model data from the .hou into Prep for editing and visualization. Since the Prep cannot read .hou files this functionality is important for any model that does not have a pre file
The cdb to Pre Converter allowed the user that built a model in ANSYS® Workbench™ to import the model data into a prep file. This conversion is very limited in scope. The user is required to use a small subset of elements with other modeling restrictions work the conversion to work properly. The user is required to provide the gravitational constant in the proper units for the model in this conversion as well as the input file name as was the case in the Hou to Pre converter.
As of ACS-SASSI v3.0.0 the File Converter has been retired. File converter is no long included in the installation package. All of Prep functionality can be found in the ACS-SASSI User Interface.