The feature I found most interesting, was including a connection to Autodesk Fusion. As many know, its the modeling modeler that is offered for free on the Autodesk Labs site.

What that means to us CFD geeks is a free forming way to optimize my designs and let the simulation results drive my decisions. Check out Luke doing his thing above. Only the first steps with Fusion, stay tuned.

The plan was an annual releases with quarterly updates. And get this, we planned to post the release dates to our user community. Seemed totally logical to me, the product manager. But, needless to say, there was quite an uncomfortable vibe in development and QA. Rightfully so, our product is immensely complex and we are tweaking and adding buckets of new functionality all the time. The pace takes a bit of getting used to. At the same time, we adopted a completely new development environment. Change is always good:)

Interestingly enough, the good people that develop ubuntu follow the same philosophy– they call it a “cadence”. Check out Mark Shuttleworth speaking about it below.

I am proud to announce that we are coming up on releasing our sixth release perfectly on time. The quality and predictability of our software has never been better. It allows us to respond to enhancement requests, fix bugs add new functionality and plan in a very efficient manner. The stress of delivering everyday is immense, but I feel that it’s what holds us all accountable. Not only accountable to the product, but accountable to the community.

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Now playing: Phish – Piper
via FoxyTunes

I think my friend, “the cloud”, has gotten a bad rap. It definitely took a ribbing at SolidWorks World 2010, where engineers were trying to make a drinking game out of it all. My sense is that its easy to make fun of something that you either don’t quite understand or that you don’t exactly see the value. I suspect its the latter in most cases.

If you have read anything on The Virtual Engineer, you will know that I am a huge fan boy of the good ole “cloud”. What is my definition of the cloud? In very simple terms it is web-enabled, web-based, web-hosted, web-stored, web-collaborated computing. Common theme here, “the web”. We all use it, many of us depend on it and some of are are even slightly addicted to it.

upfront cfd external flow simulaiton

So, why does using the word cloud cause anxiety? I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, because I clearly don’t get it. Am I the minority? Not sure. But, it dawned on me the other day that I have felt the pain of “the old way”. If you haven’t, I’m not sure you will appreciate the value. The old way is a collage of bloated hard drives, sorry-ass USB external drives, various copies of files, handfuls of thumb drives full of stuff. I’m tired of being a VPNing, remote desktoping, begging for more horse power, tired of ftp-ing slave to status quo. I want a new way. I want to have access to my files, wherever, from whatever- laptop, netbook, iphone. If I want to share my files, I want to be able to send a link to someone with highly encrypted password protected safety. I want to be able to, at a minimum, preview my files in a browser. How can I be the minority? Doesn’t everyone want this?

But, the above is just the tip of it. I’m a simulation driven, upfront CAE doing, design guy. I am drinking a Big Gulp size of the the Kool-Aid. But, you want to talk about pain. I’m not sure there is a better reason today for engineers to openly embrace the cloud than in the simulation community. But not just the simulation community, the “upfront cfd” simulation community. Why?

1. Design engineers tend to want to try numerous what-if scenarios, resulting in numerous back to back runs that ideally could run around the clock
2. CFD models are getting bigger and bigger and are requiring more and more power
3. Every design engineering department on the planet is trying to reduce cost of hardware, minimize capital investment- so paying for what you need, when you need it is a no-brainer
4. More and more engineers find that they are on the go, out of the office and need access to their data, models, computing power from anywhere

I think we are on the cusp of a major break through in the way we engineer. There are a ton of things that need to be figured out. Security, licensing, bandwidth, hardware etc are simply just the basics that need to be worked out. Exciting to see some of the most talented people in the world working on it.

Unfortunately, they took the “top down” approach. They were both respectively veterans in the CAE space that had “analyst” tools that were successful in their own right, and now they were changing their tune and exposing their technology to the design community. They found themselves in a very difficult place. They were taking what they knew and tried putting it in different terms. So, the end result was making FEA “easy to use” and making structural analysis “possible for design engineers”. But, I bet if you poll engineers and ask them how many are looking for an “easy to use FEA tool” or an FEA tool created for “design engineers”. I suspect, you will get a mixed bag. Let’s face it, most engineers are not looking for an FEA tool or a CFD tool, for that matter.

Engineers and their managers are looking for a tool that allows them to make better design decisions, reduce the number or physical prototypes, provide information whether a design passed or failed based on some failure criteria. Right? Most engineers could care less that its FEA or CFD. They expect and in many cases, demand that its easy to use. They also should not have to deal with status quo. They need tools that help them make decisions.

Where am I going with this? Don’t be fooled when looking to improve your design process. Don’t just get in line and assume that the “traditional analysis” companies or even worse, the MCAD companies, really understand how to help you make better design decisions. Each one of them is focused 100% in what they do. And what they don’t do is upfront CAE.

Traditional FEA/CFD companies are focused on working with analysts. MCAD companies are focused on 3D design. Each has a “solution” for you or so they claim. But, the reality is they are not focused on what you need.

There are very few companies that know and own the “upfront” FEA and CFD markets. Go out there, bang on google, cream rises to the top.

Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. But, don’t believe the hype. Make sure you are making the right decision.