ABAQUS/CAE is a complete ABAQUS environment that provides a simple, consistent interface for creating, submitting, monitoring, and evaluating results from ABAQUS/Standard and ABAQUS/Explicit simulations. ABAQUS/CAE is divided into modules, where each module defines a logical aspect of the modeling process; for example, defining the geometry, defining material properties, and generating a mesh. As you move from module to module, you build the model from which ABAQUS/CAE generates an input file that you submit to the ABAQUS/Standard or ABAQUS/Explicit analysis product. The analysis product performs the analysis, sends information to ABAQUS/CAE to allow you to monitor the progress of the job, and generates an output database. Finally, you use the Visualization module of ABAQUS/CAE (also licensed separately as ABAQUS/Viewer) to read the output database and view the results of your analysis.

ABAQUS/Viewer provides graphical display of ABAQUS finite element models and results. ABAQUS/Viewer is incorporated into ABAQUS/CAE as the Visualization module.