The Marc Preference provides a communication link between Patran and Marc. It customizes certain features of Patran by selecting Marc as the analysis code preference. Specifically these customized features are: multi-point constraints, materials, element properties, loads and boundary conditions (including contact), and analysis setup parameters.

MSC.AFEA is a special product package consisting of Marc, Patran, and the Marc Preference offered by the MSC.Software Corporation at a reduced price relative to purchasing all the components separately.

Marc is a general-purpose finite element computer program for engineering analyses specializing in product simulation and manufacturing processes. It is developed, supported, and maintained by the MSC.Software Corporation. See the Marc documentation for a description of specific capabilities.

Patran is the name of a suite of products also written and maintained by the MSC.Software Corporation (MSC). The core of the system is Patran, a finite element analysis pre- and postprocessor. The Patran system also includes several optional products such as advanced postprocessing, other tightly coupled solvers, and interfaces to third party solvers.

The difference between the product package, MSC.AFEA, and simply purchasing the individual components (Marc, Patran, and the Marc Preference) separately is the licensing scheme or mechanism. With MSC.AFEA licensing, Marc and Patran are interlocked. This means that an analysis can only be run on the machine from which it is submitted. It also means that only those features accessible through the graphical interface are supported. Purchasing the components separately gives you much more flexibility in that you can run the analysis on any machine and edit the input deck to access advanced analysis features that may not be available directly through Patran and the Marc Preference. However, MSC.AFEA provides a very cost effective solution.

In either case, most access to Marc functionality is seamlessly integrated into Patran via the Marc Preference. The casual user will never need to be aware that separate programs are being used. However, for a full understanding of the mechanisms and processes there are a number of components to the Marc Preference explained in the next section, Preference Components.