How integrate Abaqus python libraries into a project hosted in PyCharm

Question

There is a similar question regarding the integration of Abaqus specific python libraries into a project hosted in PyDev/Eclipse. But unfortunately the answers were not compatible with my problem at hand.

I am using ABAQUS Version 6.11-2 and the Community Edition of PyCharm 3.1.3. The Abaqus python interpreter resides at the following location on my windows7(64) machine.:

C:\SIMULIA\Abaqus\6.11-2\Python\Obj\Python.exe
Python 2.6.2 for Abaqus 6.11-2 (r262:71600, Jun 29 2011, 19:23:41) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32

The libraries I need PyCharm to resolve in order to give it's code completion magic a go are residing here - at least that's what I believe them to be.

C:\SIMULIA\Abaqus\6.11-2\Python\Lib
C:\SIMULIA\Abaqus\6.11-2\Python\Lib\abaqus.pyc
C:\SIMULIA\Abaqus\6.11-2\Python\Lib\abaqusConstants.pyc

Here are the first lines of code of the script I am trying to work on.

from abaqus import *
from abaqusConstants import *
backwardCompatibility.setValues(includeDeprecated=True, reportDeprecated=False)
import sketch
import part

PyCharm marks the abaqus and abaqusConstants import with red underlining. Showing:

 "Unresolved reference 'abaqus'".

Can someone explain to me how to configure the project in PyCharm so that PyCharm can resolve these imports?

Adding the mentioned Python.exe as a Project Interpreter in the Settings Dialog will lead to the following error messagebox saying 'Cannot setup a python SDK at ~path~. The SDK seems invalid'.

Regards

Answer 1

I'm using abaqus 6.14-4, hopefully helpful for you. I think why we need PyCharm is because we want to fully use its type checker and other functions. If we only need a editor, then Abaqus PDE is enough.

In order to achieve this goal, I have been search for abaqus python's source code for long time and couldn't find it. Since abaqus only provide the compiled *.pyc files, I use the tool uncompyle6 to decode the *.pyc files and add some functions in it.

There is my project: abaqus_pycharm

1. register \SIMULIA\Abaqus\6.14-4\tools\SMApy\python2.7\python.exe as your interpreter (Or you can choose any you want)

2. copy the files at import-files folder to your site-packages folder

notices that this program used os.system command to run abaqus command line, shown as below:

def saveAs(self, pathName):
    if isinstance(self.debug, bool) and self.debug:
        print(pathName)
    if 'ABAQUS_BAT_SETTING' in os.environ.keys():
        self.abaqus_bat_setting = os.environ['ABAQUS_BAT_SETTING']
    if 'ABAQUS_BAT_PATH' in os.environ.keys():
        self.abaqus_bat_path = os.environ['ABAQUS_BAT_PATH']
    os.system(self.abaqus_bat_path + ' cae -' + self.abaqus_bat_setting + ' ' + os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0]))

so we need to set environment like:

environ['ABAQUS_BAT_PATH'] = 'D:\\SIMULIA\\Abaqus\\Commands\\abaqus'
environ['ABAQUS_BAT_SETTING'] = 'noGUI'

and it will run as:

D:\SIMULIA\Abaqus\Commands\abaqus.bat -noGUI your_current_working_file.py

Answer 2

Five years late to the party but this worked for me with Abaqus 2016 and PyCharm 2019.1 Professional on Windows 10:

1. Open Abaqus CAE, go to the Kernel Command Line Interface (the >>> icon) and enter the following:

>>> import os
>>> print(os.environ['PYTHONPATH'])
C:\SIMULIA\CAE\2016;C:\SIMULIA\CAE\2016\win_b64;C:\SIMUL ...

2. Copy the output and make that your system-wide PYTHONPATH environment variable. I trimmed a repeat entry and some . paths.

3. Restart PyCharm so it picks up the new PYTHONPATH, go to File/Settings/Project/Project Interpreter, click the Cog icon then Add. Choose the System Interpreter option then point it towards the python.exe in the Abaqus bin directory. In my case this was C:\SIMULIA\CAE\2016\win_b64\code\bin\python.exe. Don't be misled by other ones like C:\SIMULIA\CAE\2016\win_b64\tools\SMApy\python2.7\python.exe - they won't work.

This isn't bulletproof - for example, your line from abaqus import * won't work for me - even if I add ABA_PATH to the system path I get ImportError: abaqus module may only be imported in the Abaqus kernel process. But some debugging and code completion works, for example:

Setting the system-wide path seemed a bit heavy-handed but I wasn't able to get it going any other way.