Exascale on Your Desktop by 2020

Remember the CFD 2030 Vision Study and its identification of exascale computing as one of the pacing technologies for advancement of CFD over the next decades?

How about 17.1 exaflops by 2020 all while using power from your normal wall outlet? That’s the claim from Optalsys and their optical processor. Targets are 340 gigaflops by 2015, a few petaflops by 2017, leading to the exaflop model in only 6 years. The company is specifically targeting CFD.

Read more about Optalsys from HPC Wire.

Software

• Pointwise V17.2 R2 was released with a major enhancement to hex layer extrusion in T-Rex plus other new capabilities.
• CEI released EnSight 10.1 including native polyhedra support.
• Materialise released 3-maticSTL 9.0 for working with faceted geometry data.
• MSC Software released Marc 2014 which includes CAD and meshing improvements among other things. [PDF]
• Siemens PLM Software released Parasolid v27.0 [Note: NOT Parasolids]
• Desktop Engineering wrote about Tecplot’s ability to visualize a billion cells on a workstation.

An example of native polyhedra support in EnSight 10.1. Image from CEI.

Events

• SIGGRAPH is next week and while it’s not directly CFD or meshing related, it’s worth watching this preview video of Emerging Technologies.
• Flow Science announced the presenters for the 2014 FLOW-3D Americas Users Conference.
• The 2015 Americas Altair Technology Conference will be held 5-7 May in Dearborn, MI. In addition, the company seems to have borrowed an idea from TED with the introduction of ATCx 1-day events.

Applications

• Interested in generating rotor-stator meshes in snappyHexMesh?
• How about meshing nuclear reactors with help from Kitware?
• Here’s the best of the visualization web for June 2014 from the Visualizing Data blog.
• Design News shares a brief article on applying CFD early in the design process.

Maybe someday we’ll find grids the way Yobi3D finds geometry. Here’s what I got by searching for “landing gear.” Click image for website.

Business & Other News

• ANSYS continues to make money like they have a printing press in the basement: $232 million for 2014 Q2.
• From sourceflux comes this 1-page OpenFOAM Cheat Sheet.
• Lifecycle Insights provides a video preview of and a full e-book about design data exchange (i.e. 3D model exchange).
• Crazy Aircraft Creations is the Shapeways on-line store of Mihai Pruna where you can buy 3D printed aircraft and CFD related jewelry and trinkets. [I like the Fluid Flow Around a Sphere in Color but it’s a bit out of my price range.]

SolidWorks Flow Simulation of an espresso maker brew head. Image from the Solid Notes blog. Click image for article.

Wireframe Furniture

“Let’s admit it: wireframe views in CAD are awesome.”

So says the SolidSmack blog and I’ll agree and expand the scope of that statement to CFD software too.

I’m gonna run out of room in my office if I keep buying everything that reminds me of a mesh, but Noiz Architects and their line of wireframe furniture is pretty tempting. While you’re on their site, find the “strata fields” chandelier.

And why is it that architects are always designing chairs (e.g. Gehry, Lebeskind, Jacobsen)?

Noiz Architects presents their line of Wireframe Furniture, perfect for any CFDer’s office.