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

KTechLab

[Richard Dick Head]

While still in alpha, KTechLab looks pretty promising for layout and simulation.

Re:KTechLab

[harrkev]

In a similar manner, look at http://www.geda.seul.org/

But these are electrical engineering tools. The original article seemed to be more about mechanical engineering tools. My guess is that people write what they need and what interestes them. Mechanical engineers might not have as much software skill as other diciplines. Mechanical engineering seems more "physical" and likely appeals to a different type of person than electrical engineering and computer engineering. Of course, I could just be a biased EE.

Re:KTechLab

[Skagit]

The parent is right. MechE and CivE students come out of college with little or no formal programming classes under their belt - unless it is a hobby. There are courses in using CAD (which have replaced mechanical drafting courses) and usually some courses complementary to finite element method software and matrix structural analysis. There, the focus is on figuring out what the software does (ie. building and decomposing degree-of-freedom matrices) rather than how the software does what it does. In order to pack in mechanics, materials and the host of various disciplines while teaching to the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, software suffers. Thus, you don't get many people who can analyze swidesway-inhibited multistory structures and can make code to give it a good user interface.

Still, as others have mentioned, Autodesk's products are ubiquitous. AutoCAD interfaces with several popular structural analysis and FEA packages, the number of FOSS add-ons is pretty immense and you can send a release-14 file, readable by just about anybody. If you want to customize it by interfacing with CAM or analysis, it comes with a version of LISP. Try to save cash somewhere else and pony up the $2.5K for AutoCAD. I think AutoCAD is like Excel - open source is going to take a long time to catch up.

You might find some real niche programs that somebody wrote for the problem at hand and take elements from it for what you need. I think if you collect enough stuff, organize it and put it on Sourceforge, you might get something useful back.

BRL-CAD

[NaNO2x]

Haven't looked at this much, but I remember when someone was asking about the same sort of thing this link came up and looked fairly interesting. http://brlcad.org/

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

[LWATCDR]

Gee that is helpful. Actually you can find alots of obscure niche software for Linux. GRASSGIS and AirfoilX are two good examples.
For CAD you may want to look at http://www.brlcad.org/
Good luck.

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.

Re:Ask Slashdot Template

[psykocrime]

Actually, the only app I've had real problems replacing is MS Project, ironically I need it for my Software engineering degree; You'd think developers had no need for project management tools. Maybe I should submit an ask slashdot? ;)

Have you looked at http://www.openworkbench.org/? It's a formerly commercial PM package that went opensource a while back.

Re:Ask Slashdot Template

[kiatoa]

Taskjuggler looks very good also: http://www.taskjuggler.org/

Re:Ask Slashdot Template

[Frumious Wombat]

Molecular Physicists/Computational Chemists have made available through a variety of open licenses, including GPL, highly complex, well-developed, robust simulation codes. We're undoubtedly a smaller niche than MechE's, but we have a good couple dozen solid production codes to choose from (if you mix the quantum people and the classical MD people), for between Free (beer/speech) to Freeish (moderate license fee, or restrictions on code redistribution).

Maybe the problem is cultural: people who can write such software, write it for money. There isn't enough money in electronic structure packages, so at least half of them remain free. The money that's charged is frequently to cover duplication costs, and to chase off dilettants.

Maybe the bigger problem is the parent poster is expecting a level of user-obsequiousness from his software. Most of my community's free codes are somewhere between User-Indifferent to User-Surly, but you get used to the ones that are relevant to your own work rather quickly.

However, I would list Octave http://www.octave.org/ and OpenDX http://www.opendx.org/ as good starting places for tools. That will get you a good programming environment, and an absolutely killer visualization framework.

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.

Look at available NASA tools

[RockClimbingFool]

For fluids, you really can't beat Overflow and its associated tools. Written by some of the guys at AMES, its open source and comes with decent grid generation tools. I am not a structures guy, but isn't NASTRAN an industry standard NASA FEA tool?

try octave

[blackcoot]

http://octave.org/ i suggest you get the cvs version. most matlab scripts will just work, unless they're mex files (in which case you're s.o.l.). that makes a lot of the packages you mentioned at least possible.

as for the meat of your question, i suggest you try to write one of the pieces of software you mentioned --- the exact reasons for why they're hard to find in general will become apparent pretty quickly.

OpenCascade

[jungd]

http://www.opencascade.org/

It is a big package far more capable that most commercial apps and is open source.

CAD is the biggest niche there is

[digitect]

CAD is hardly niche. AutoDesk (makers of AutoCAD) made $1 billion in profits last year.

Take the US Construction industry, 4.8 percent of the U.S. GDP. That's $1.1 trillion. Now figure that most architectural firms I know (I'm an architect) have a copy for every intern, drafter and architect they have. That's a ballpark of 113,000 people. The same then goes for the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, civil, landscape architect, and survey design professions. Also, most owners have a facilities department, they all use AutoCAD. Nearly all larger contractors have a copy, as well as most smaller specialty shops like cabinet makers, hardware manufacturers, etc. Throw in all the units at colleges and universities for the students in these professions to use. This is just the construction industry! We haven't even counted industries like automotive (not just cars, think parts), transportation, aerospace, electronics, toys, pharmaceutical equipment, and whatever else I forgot.

Free Software versions are not around, but there is a huge market for CAD software. It's not easy, it's not shiney...and it's not niche.

Re:CAD is the biggest niche there is

[EngineeringMarvel]

I wanted to back up my parent thread holder here and say you can add the ship building industry in there too. Almost the entire Northrop Grumman sector I work in uses AutoCAD and ShipContructor (an AutoCAD add-on). That's an engineering core of over 400. Add in the other Northrop Grumman sectors I have worked with, whom also use AutoCAD, now you have well over 5000. As a defense contracting company, we work with other defense contractors, like, Lockheed Martin, guess what they primarily use......AutoCAD. I'm not done yet, in the ship building industry, an engineer has to deal with over 5-6 vendors...each. I'd say over 90% of the information we receive from them is ported to, if not created in, AutoCAD, before sent to NGSS. Just the defense industry alone uses enough AutoCAD to say that my parent's parent thread is incorrect.

CAx software

[Noksagt]

Mostly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_s oftware_packages. I've used most, usually for some part of a design or analysis. You could do engineering with only these (people used to not use computers at all), but you are correct that they aren't always "polished." They do, however, work fine for the patient, idealistic hobbyist who doesn't want to spend much money:

• CAE Linux - A LiveCD which lets you try out SALOME and Code-Aster
• Quanitan - A LiveCD with QCad,
• Impact - Finite element
• QCad - 2D CAD
• BRL-CAD - 3D CAD
• Open CASCADE - software development platform for 3D CAD, CAM, CAE, etc.
• Code_Aster - FEM
• Salome - pre/post processing

Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked

[idommp]

Humorous but true. I've spent 25 years writing engineering (and other scientific applications) software. The development cycle is LONG because the problems being addressed are complex. Most any idiot can program a text processor. Programming a complex mathematical analysis that guarantees the bridge won't fall down in a stiff wind is a bit harder. It requires a bit of skill and esoteric knowledge. Having that knowledge, I whore my services out to the highest bidder. Companies pay me to design programs that make their engineers more efficient. Why would they want to share that knowledge with the competition?

There is also liability involved when doing engineering software.

But OpenSource is alive and well in this arena. http://www.opendwg.org/ is just one example.

Yes

[4of12]

You can go one of two ways for FEA.

• Shrink-wrapped software for the PC, with nice Windows GUIs, with proprietary file formats, with good support built-in for other proprietary file formats, particularly for geometry.
• Open source software with greater cross-platform portability but decidedly less friendly GUI's, much less support for the variety of proprietary file formats.

As one promising application in open source FEA, take a look at Gmsh.

Part of the problem is that there is whole sequence to typical FEA

1. Geometry creation, editing and repair.
2. Discretization, meshing.
3. Analysis.
4. Visualization.

Traditionally, analysis has been decoupled from geometry, using very simple low order elements to do the calculations. Visualization, likewise, can be done based on millions of linear tetrahedra, hexahedra, or surface patches.

Now, it seems increasingly useful if higher order, global geometric information (eg, NURBS) could be made part of some finite element analyses and passed back and forth more easily through each phase of analysis. I keep hoping that OpenCascade or perhaps something like X3D provides a geometry engine that is open and is useful to FEA.

When you get down to it, much FEA shares a lot with the gaming community in terms of needs for geometry, surface discretization, and visualization.

Perhaps my dream FEA FOSS geometry representation will be realized when someone in the gaming community decides to use FEA to help render more physically realistic scenes rather than faking things that look realistic enough but cheat (and why not?) on the physics with a less computationally expensive algorithm.

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.

another CAD program

[andylievertz]

Is this helpful to you, or have I misunderstood the question?

QCAD

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.