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Motion
Inspire Motion provides Multibody Simulation (MBS) capabilities to analyze the motion, dynamics, and interactions of interconnected rigid or flexible bodies within a system.
Motion Analyst
The Analyst profile functions as a feature-rich pre-processor, originally inspired by the needs of the automotive industry. Utilizing a hard-point design approach, it provides access to the full suite of MotionSolve features and capabilities. The Analyst profile offers unparalleled flexibility in system modeling and can be highly tailored to specific industry requirements. However, this versatility comes with increased complexity, requiring a higher level of MBD expertise and a specialized mindset for effective use.
Motion Connections
Define motion connections by grounding parts and creating rigid groups and joints.
General Constraints
Use the General Constraints tool to create a generic expression-based constraint.

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New to Inspire? Learn the basics here.
Tutorials
Start using Inspire with our interactive tutorials.
Variables
Create and assign variables to parametrize a model. This allows you to quickly iterate and compare design concepts by tweaking the values of the variables.
Parametric Modeling
Create parametric sketches, geometry, and PolyNURBS with construction history and variables.
Implicit Modeling
Create implicit models with primitives, lattices, point clouds, fields, offsetting, Booleans, inverting, smoothing, morphing, and filleting.
Structures
Set up your model and run a structural analysis or optimization.
Motion
Inspire Motion provides Multibody Simulation (MBS) capabilities to analyze the motion, dynamics, and interactions of interconnected rigid or flexible bodies within a system.
- Motion Designer
  The Designer profile adopts a user-centric approach, prioritizing accessibility and ease of use over complexity. While its feature set is less extensive than that of the Analyst profile, it compensates by streamlining functionality and abstracting complexities through intuitive user interactions. This simplicity empowers users outside the traditional Multibody Dynamics (MBD) community to achieve their objectives efficiently, requiring minimal familiarity with MBD.
- Motion Analyst
  The Analyst profile functions as a feature-rich pre-processor, originally inspired by the needs of the automotive industry. Utilizing a hard-point design approach, it provides access to the full suite of MotionSolve features and capabilities. The Analyst profile offers unparalleled flexibility in system modeling and can be highly tailored to specific industry requirements. However, this versatility comes with increased complexity, requiring a higher level of MBD expertise and a specialized mindset for effective use.
  - Entity Creation
    General workflows to add or edit an entity in Inspire Motion Analyst.
  - Expressions
    Motion Analyst entities support expressions.
  - Pairs and Symmetric Modeling in Inspire Motion
    Inspire Motion supports symmetrical modeling, leveraging geometric or physical symmetry in mechanical systems to simplify both modeling and editing. Symmetrical modeling takes advantage of mirrored or repeated components, allowing systems to be represented with fewer entities and parameters.
  - Attachments
    Attachments offer a means to connect definition-based analyst entities such as systems, analyses, data sets and templates.
  - Motion Create
  - Motion Connections
    Define motion connections by grounding parts and creating rigid groups and joints.
    - Ground
      Use the Ground tool to define which parts are considered to be ground and therefore immovable.
    - Rigid Groups
      Use the Rigid Groups tool to define which parts are considered to be grouped together and treated as one rigid body.
    - Joints
      Use the Joints tool to create and edit joints.
    - Couplers
      A coupler entity defines an algebraic relationship between the degrees of freedom of two or three joints.
    - Gears
    - Advanced Joints
      Use the Advanced Joints tool to create and edit a set of special constraints called higher pair joints. Typically, these are constraints that involve a curve or surface on at least one of the two parts.
    - Constraint Mates
      Use the Constraint Mates tool to connect two parts based on distance, coincidence, or tangency.
    - General Constraints
      Use the General Constraints tool to create a generic expression-based constraint.
  - Motion Forces
    Apply motors, actuators, springs, and gravity to define the elements for a motion analysis.
  - Flexible Bodies
    Convert rigid bodies or rigid groups to flexible bodies and review flexible body modes before running a motion analysis.
  - Motion References
  - Motion Measurements
  - Motion Control
  - Motion Analysis
    Run a motion analysis, plot the results, and extract the results for use in structural (FE) analysis and optimization.
Fluids
Prepare and run a computational fluid dynamics simulation.
Design Explorer
Evaluate designs by using geometric variables and applying a design-of-experiments (DOE) or optimization method. We recommend fully constraining your sketch when sketch variables are used in the design exploration.
Manufacture
Set up and run a basic porosity or thinning analysis.
Print 3D
Prepare and run an additive manufacturing simulation, and export a file for 3D printing.
Rendering
Adjust the materials and environment of objects in the scene to create a photorealistic image.
Inspire Python API
Learn how to access the Inspire Python API including online help, quick start demos, and the Extension Manager.
Reference
View the glossary, frequently asked questions, and errors and alerts.
Keyboard Shortcuts and Mouse Controls
Learn keyboard shortcuts and mouse controls for common operations.

General Constraints

Use the General Constraints tool to create a generic expression-based constraint.

Inspire provides several standard constraints such as Joints and Motions, however they may not be suitable to represent all possible modeling scenarios. A General Constraint may be defined using solver expressions in such scenarios. During solution, the solver would impose constraint such that the given expression is equated to zero.

For information on how to add or edit an entity like a general constraint, see Entity Creation.

General Constraints Properties

Descriptions of general constraints properties in the Property Editor.

Table 1.
Property	Description
General
Name	Descriptive label for the entity
Variable Name	Variable name of the entity
ID	Integer identifier
Active	Active state of the entity True or False Entity is deactivated if False
Properties
Expression	Solver expression that sets the constraint
Use Virtual	Set the constraint as virtual¹
Signal
User-defined	Use a subroutine to define the general constraint. For User expr, provide an expression with the USER solver function with parameters being passed to the user subroutine. Turn on Use local file and function name to provide a local file for the subroutine. Otherwise, Inspire Motion will search for the subroutine within its search path. Specify a Local file where the subroutine code can be accessed by the solver. If this option is not specified, the application will search for a subroutine following its user subroutine loading rules. Note: The type of file to be specified will depend on the selected function type. For example, if DLL/SO is selected, you can specify a file with a `.dll` extension (for Windows) or an `.so` extension (for Linux). Select a Function type from the dropdown menu: DLL/SO Python MatLab Compose Specify the Function name in the subroutine that defines the entity, or accept the default name provided by the application.
Notes and Tags
Attachment Candidate	Add an attachment candidate tag. See Attachments.

Comments

The Use Virtual option defines whether the constraint is virtual or regular. If Use Virtual is selected, the constraint is implemented as a virtual constraint. Otherwise, the constraint is implemented as a regular algebraic constraint.