A Survey for Engineering Software Users

Cyon Research is conducting their annual survey of engineering software users. Because the survey takes 40 minutes to complete, participants will be sent the final results at no cost. Others will have to pay nearly $2,000 for the same.

• Cyon Research’s 2013 Survey of Users of Engineering Software

Applications

Hydrogen concentration and velocity as computed with an LES code. Image from the paper by Koutsourakis et al.

• From CFD Letters, application of an LES code to hydrogen dispersion.
• The January 2013 issue of the International Journal of CFD is now online.

News in Brief

• Interested in a career in model-based simulation? Check out CyDesign.
• Desktop Engineering extolls the virtues of a CIMdata/Mentor Graphics white paper (from 2009) on CFD for Mechanical Design Engineers, “A Paradigm for Better Design.” Why don’t design engineers use CFD? They lack sufficient expertise and they don’t know what CFD can do. [Registration required to download paper.]
• Some in the CAD world are excited because Dassault Systemes’ CEO declared that they were going to cease use of Parasolid in SolidWorks in favor of “V6,” meaning CATIA or its geometry kernel.
• NAFEMS launched a blog.
• NAFEMS is also bundling three CFD publications at a 30% discount. This offer is only open through the end of February.
• CIMdata published a report on the simulation and analysis market.

Software

A mesh generated with Airtight Interactive’s WebCamMesh. Image from Airtight’s website.

• Simpleware 5.1 was released with a new capability to create NURBS surfaces from 3D image data and improved mesh optimization tools. [This was released last September but the post I saw from Desktop Engineering is dated this month.]
• GraphicSpeak covers the new features and improved performance of Femap 11.
• AFOSR is funding a joint Virignia Tech-North Carolina State team with the goal of improving multi-core supercomputing so that CFD for micro air vehicles can be performed more efficiently.
• Beta CAE released ANSA v14.0.1.
• Perhaps some day generating a mesh will be as easy as taking a photo. WebCamMesh is an HTML5 application that uses your webcam to make a WebGL 3D mesh. [I tried to run the demo in Chrome but it complained that it couldn’t access my webcam which is probably a good thing for those readers sensitive to shocking imagery.]
• Amoeba, a new cloud-based CFD solver, was released.
• ITI Transcendata released CADfix Version 9.0 for 3D CAD data exchange. This new release includes a new user interface and improved defeaturing and repair tools.
• Symscape offers this sneak peak at Caedium CFD v5 including polyhedral mesh support.

Polyhedral mesh around an F-1 car in Caedium v5. Image from Symscape.

Events

• The 22nd International Meshing Roundtable will be held on 13-16 October 2013 in Orlando. The Call for Papers has been issued and full papers are due by 03 June and research notes are due by 31 July.
• The abstract submission deadline for the Mesh Trends Symposium (and the rest of the U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics) has been extended to 28 February.

Unstructured Seating

A bean bag chair fit for a mesher. Image from Gizmodo.

This award winning chair from designer Antoinette Bader shows how a little tessellation transforms the lumpy [analog?] bean bag chair into a discrete and flexible seat. Now, if only my desk was low enough so I could reach the keyboard.