Several plug-ins are provided on the ABAQUS installation CD. You can view these plug-ins by selecting Plug-insABAQUS from the main menu bar. In addition, you can use the Plug-insABAQUSProcess Automation Portal menu to access the ABAQUS Process Automation Portal. The portal provides example plug-ins as well as access to a community of users that fosters the advance of the ABAQUS Scripting Interface and the ABAQUS GUI Toolkit. You can also write your own plug-ins, as described in the rest of this chapter.

A plug-in can be available in every ABAQUS/CAE module, or it can be available only in selected modules. For example, a noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) plug-in (see “Displaying modal contribution factors,” Section 55.4) is provided with ABAQUS/CAE. This plug-in postprocesses data from an output database and displays the results; and, as a result, it is available only in the Visualization module. You can install a plug-in with ABAQUS and make it available to every user at your site. Alternatively, you can install a plug-in in your home directory, and it will not be visible to other users.