On top of all the other work they normally do, the Pointwise staff is busily preparing for the Pointwise 2013 User Group Meeting, which will be held in Fort Worth on March 19th and 20th. Yes, it is extra work, but everyone at Pointwise looks forward to the user group meeting. It is our best chance to spend a lot of time with our clients, learn how they really use our software, and get ideas for making it even better.

Travis Carrigan preparing for the Meshing Forensics short course.

Of course, there are benefits for the meeting attendees also. The first day of the meeting includes training in the newest features in Pointwise. We constantly update our software and introduce new features that make the mesh generation process faster and more reliable. If you have your head down working on projects all the time, you may miss out on some of these time-savers and not even be aware they are there.

There are also a couple of training sessions on getting the most out of the structured meshing techniques in Pointwise. One of the strengths of Pointwise is the relative ease with which it can produce high-quality structured meshes. It includes elliptic smoothing techniques with a variety of controls over mesh spacing, orthogonality, and smoothness. Normally, most of these controls are hidden and default settings are applied, but sometimes you need that extra bit of control over the mesh. These sessions will tell exactly how to do that.

Erick Gantt conducting training at the 2011 Pointwise UGM.

Pointwise includes a plugin interface that lets you write grid and boundary conditions to any CAE format you want. Taking that first step toward writing a plugin can be a bit intimidating, but they usually don’t take that long to write, so another training session is aimed at getting you over that starting hump and on to writing your own plugin quickly and easily. It will also cover some of the more innovative things you can do with plugins. They can be used for more than just writing CAE files.

The final training session is a short course on meshing forensics. That is, what do you do when you encounter a problem while making a grid? Several common scenarios, from dealing with CAD problems to making adjustments in a completed volume grid will be covered.

All of that is just in the first day. The day wraps up with a reception along with our exhibiting and sponsoring partners: ANSYS, CEI, Software Cradle, Metacomp Technologies, Tecplot, and Tetra Research. Attendees can mingle with other Pointwise users, Pointwise staff, and our partners. We will also be demonstrating a prototype of our new Pointwise iOS app and soliciting feedback here. What does the app do? You’ll have to come see for yourself.

Opening reception from the last Pointwise UGM.

The second day of the meeting is the general technical session. This is a mix of user presentations and Pointwise staff presentations. The user presentations cover a wide range of topics from structured grids for turbomachinery and power generation to hybrid grids on complex geometries. It always amazes me to see the innovative ways people use Pointwise. There will also be a couple of previews of the new overset grid capabilities we are adding to Pointwise for a future release.

The Pointwise staff presentations will bring everyone up to date on the current status of the software and highlight developments we are working on for the future. And yes, there is plenty of opportunity for attendees to provide their input on future directions.

On the afternoon of the second day, there will be a CFD Gallery, which is an extended coffee break and chance to mingle with Pointiwse staff and our exhibiting partners. This is also when the Meshy Award for the most beautiful mesh will be presented. We have a lot of great entries again this year, and it will not be easy to pick a winner. Every meeting attendee will receive a shirt imprinted with images of the winning mesh.

2011 Meshy Award winner Dr. Michael Boettcher with Dr. John Steinbrenner, Pointwise V.P., R&D.

The final event is the Pointwise User Group Meeting After Party, held in a pub across the street from the meeting venue. Usually, some very spirited pool and shuffleboard games happen during the after party. Since most of the Pointwise staff, including our new employees, will be there, this is also a chance to talk to them in a more casual setting and ask them those questions you might not otherwise get to ask.

The meeting is coming up soon, but there is still time to make plans to attend. Simply go to our registration page now to sign up, and we’ll see you in Fort Worth!