Open Source Engineering Tools?

ThosLives asks: "It seems to be the case that most open source projects fall into the software development, business, and desktop realms. I have done a bit of unfruitful searching for good FOSS engineering tools. By this I mean: 3D CAD/CAM, FEA, fluids, and math simulation tools. I have been able to find various 'academic quality' FEA, fluids, and math sim tools; those are, however, not sufficient for even hobby-level production work because they: have a lacking interface; don't have a standard file formats; and are not standalone products (i.e., they require Matlab or some other expensive package). If you were going to set up an engineering shop to design and produce mechanical devices, what FOSS software tools, if any, are available and recommended? Commercial options are out of the question for the hobbyist, when even basic 3D CAD functionality typically costs more than $100 (and typically run over $500), and 'consumer-level' analysis packages are practically nonexistent. If there are no free options, what could be done with a budget of $500 or $1000? As an aside, are there any thoughts on why the engineering applications appear to be so overlooked by the open source community?"

Comments

Ask Slashdot Template

[IntlHarvester]

Dear Slashdot, I am looking for an open source versions of some obscure expensive niche software that is only of interest to a tiny audience. Why can't I find it? I don't have much money, so it would be great if you guys could hurry up and write something which meets my needs.

(Meanwhile back in reality, open source users are overjoyed that they finally have a wordprocessor that arguably equals MS Word.)

Re:Ask Slashdot Template

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Apart from its misguided sarcasm, why is this marked as a troll? This is the whole point of the free software movement: to rewrite what has been developed and to write what hasn't under an OSS license so that everyone should be able to use the software regardless of their income.

Now of course the latest, greatest software, and the software with the most effort into it, will be released nonfree first. If you want someone to work on it full time you'll need to pay him. But CAD has been here for years. The research into what works and what doesn't has been completed, and any relevant software or design patents have (or should have) expired. The proper way to go about writing CAD software is by no means still a trade secret. So why shouldn't there be an OSS version?

And yes, we are overjoyed at having free word processors, and justifiably. We now have a free product that rivals the proprietary products released at the same time - and the free product was developed largely on people's spare time, whereas there are employees whose sole job is to develop the proprietary product. And even though there were employees writing StarOffice, they couldn't have been paid out of the royalties.

Same reason classical music is often overlooked..

[QuantumG]

As an aside, are there any thoughts on why the engineering applications appear to be so overlooked by the open source community?

Because they're really really hard.

Matlab replacements

[sysadmn]

Scilab is free as in beer, but not free as in libre. It runs on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, and Windows. It's pretty similar to Matlab, as best I recall. It also includes links to Maple and PVM.
Another possibility (again, not libre, but free) is LyME for the Palm Pilot. LyME is a matlab-like environment good enough for simple what-if scenarios.

In general...

[stienman]

As an aside, are there any thoughts on why the engineering applications appear to be so overlooked by the open source community?

In general open source programmers scratch an itch.

Programmers don't always make good engineers.

Engineers don't always make good programmers.

If you really love programming, you'll typically want to spend more time programming than, say, engineering. Therefore you may not ever have the desire to write an engineering program unless an engineer challenges you.

If you really love engineering, you'll typically want to spend more time engineering..ing than, say, programming. Therefore you'll likely never write your own tools if there's something available that you can use out of the box. Especially if it's an industry standard and can get your better employment.

Programmers make programs that make them more efficient. You don't see many open source knitting programs. Same for cat breeding and many other areas where programming doesn't naturally flow.

If anything, however, engineering is one of the closest disciplines to programming, and there is a lot of OS engineering software out there.

-Adam

Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked

[schmiddy]

Because you need domain knowledge. I have no idea of what a MechE does in his day to day worklife.

I've found this to be mostly true, especially in the past. I've been looking for decent Electrical Engineering tools for Linux. Being a student, I can't really afford any of the commercial solutions (and they're actually not all that great either.. I find PSpice to be complete crap). I'd like to have some basic tools just for drawing circuits, never mind accurately modeling them, but the ones that exist are pretty bad. Oregano is the most decent of the bunch, but it has really terrible UI bugs (can't edit out unnecessary pins or labels), and sometimes its internal grid gets misaligned and the wires you're drawing won't connect properly.

This isn't even stuff that's that hard to code -- the CompSci students at my school all have to take the intro circuits class.

On a positive note, it's pretty encouraging how far projects like Audacity (audio editing), Gimp (image editing), inkscape (vector graphics) and a whole slew more I'm forgetting have come -- these are all difficult projects, and especially difficult to code with a decent UI, and I've found them much more useable as of late. So perhaps there's hope for smaller projects that aren't as widely used, as, say, Firefox.