What's New in Altair Inspire 2025

Altair Inspire is a powerful tool for design and simulation, empowering engineers to create innovative products. Inspire continues to evolve, bringing users enhanced capabilities and streamlined workflows. Inspire 2025 is here! Let's dive into the exciting new features that await you.

Interface Enhancements

Altair Copilot: Your AI-Powered Assistant

Need help while you're working? Altair has implemented its own version of Copilot, an AI-powered support assistant. Currently in Beta, this handy tool is located in the upper right-hand corner of the interface. Simply enter your prompts or questions, and Copilot will return relevant support materials, complete with links for deeper exploration. It functions similarly to other AI assistants you may have used before.

Fig 1: Altair Copilot Input Screen

Altair PhysicsAI Extension

For those who haven’t heard of PhysicsAI,  it's a tool that uses historical simulation data to accurately predict physics outcomes. Now, you can access it directly within Inspire through a convenient extension. To find it, go to Files > Extensions. From there, you can learn more about the extension and enable it. Once enabled, a "PhysicsAI" tab will appear in the ribbon, giving you quick access to its features.

Fig 2: Extensions Menu showing PhysicsAI Tab enabled

Streamlined Simulation Results with Color Gradients

A small but useful enhancement is the ability to change color gradients directly from within the legend results. This shortcut saves time and makes it easier to visualize your simulation results. Plus, you can now maintain those color gradients when using section cuts for a more consistent and informative analysis. These smaller changes really add to the usability of the tool.

Fig 3: Section view with legend and callout to button to change color

CFD Simulation Enhancements

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation just got a boost in Altair Inspire 2025. Several key enhancements make it easier to incorporate complex geometries and boundary conditions into your analyses.

Implicit Models in CFD

A few years ago, Altair introduced implicit modeling into Inspire, making it easy to create lattice structures and perform rod simulations. With 2025, you can now include those implicit models directly in your CFD simulations! Users who have created an implicit model and a shell to act as your bounding solid can identify those in the setup for a CFD analysis. You can now select the implicit model as your embedded solid, opening new possibilities for simulating complex geometries.

Fig 4: CFD simulation with implicit model included

Natural Convection as a Boundary Condition

Inspire 2025 now includes natural convection as a boundary condition within your CFD studies. When creating your fluid domain, simply click the Variable Density checkbox. You'll then have the option to choose between the Boussinesq model or the Ideal Gas model, allowing you to tailor your analysis to the specific scenario. You can also easily modify thermal variables and designate heat sources within your model. This helps simulate realistic conditions for your simulations.

Fig 5: Fluid domain menu with Variable Density checkbox

Porous Media in CFD Simulations

Altair Inspire 2025 now allows you to integrate porous models into your CFD simulations. This feature will be helpful to those that have applications like the ability to simulate filters or screens.

To set up a porous media simulation, start by selecting your boundary solid (for example, the outer circle in the image below). Then, click on the Porous Media icon and select the porous part. A menu will appear, allowing you to modify the porosity variables. For instance, if you're modeling an aerospace cooling duct, you might input specific values for connectivity porosity, viscous resistance, and inertial resistance. Then, create your fluid domain, inlets, and outlets as usual.

Fig 6: Porosity variables menu

Before I finish this section: This isn’t new with this release, but something I love about Inspire. You'll see your results on convergence plots as they become available during as the solve is processing. Then once the simulation is complete, you can easily visualize the results, choosing between gauge pressure, velocity, and temperature. Inspire makes it simple to adjust the speed and thickness of your streamline animations, giving you greater control over your visualizations.

Fig 7: Streamline animations options

Overall, Altair Inspire 2025 offers a host of significant improvements that will enhance your design and simulation workflows. From the AI-powered Copilot, the integration of PhysicsAI extension to the enhanced CFD capabilities, there's a lot of value in this new release. To see a complete rundown of the enhancements in this release check this out: Altair Inspire 2025 Release Notes. To discuss inspire further or see if this is right for you, let us know.