Bit late with this, but I’ve just been working on the full review of CFdesign for the next issue of DEVELOP3D, but I thought now would be as good of a time as any to put together a few thoughts on the latest release of CFdesign and get them out there.

The Blue Ridge Numerics guys have always gone great guns for CAD integrated Computational Fluid Dynamics and simulation but they’ve excelled themselves with this release. What’s new? the answer is not a massive amount. The question should be, what can you do more efficiently? And the answer to that is a LOT.

What the 2010 release is all about is two things. Firstly, giving you the tools to conduct multiple design studies within a single file and a single dataset. That’s not particularly unique, but it’s new to CFdesign (you could accomplish similar using workarounds in previous releases). The tools now available mean you can set-up multiple studies, reuse settings, meshes, model set-ups, then use that as the basis for multiple studies, whether you’re changing geometry, playing with part positions, whether you’re playing with multiple heat or fluid settings. It really doesn’t matter. The system let’s you contain and interact with everything relating to a project in a single place. THat’s going to save you a lot of time hunting around for information you ‘just had’.

The second part is the ability to work with that mass of data, conduct comparisons, to create output from it, whether’s the usual vector plots or more standard (and usually more useful) charts. The new Design Center gives you tools to load up multiple results sets, display and synchronise common datasets and use the results to make design decisions – which is what it’s all about.

Other updates include new tools for handling data shifting between CFdesign and your workhourse CAD system (it works with the majority of major systems… and some smaller ones), tools to quickly create volume models for exterior flow problems (using push/pull modelling tools) to name but a few.

We’ll have the full run down in a little while but in the mean time, and as ever, CFdesign’s Product Manager, Derrek Cooper’s been hot on the case and given us a video tour of what’s new. Check it below.

And if that’s not enough, with a review in October, with Greg’s look at how Blue Ridge are taking advantage of hardware advances for increasing simulation efficiency (which HAS to be read) in the September issue, I don’t know what is.

Things have started gearing in the add-on application space this week, following Autodesk’s launch of Inventor 2010, with several partner developers already issuing details of what they’ve got coming up for users.

TraceParts Software just announced that its eponymously titled library of suppliers and standard parts catalogs has successfully passed the challenging Autodesk Inventor 2010 certification. For those unaware of the developer, TraceParts has been developing its range of 3d component libraries for decades now, so its no wonder that the company now has 100+ million 3D models and 2D drawings at hand. This includes both industry standard components, as well as a hell of a lot of manufacturer specific catalogs.

While I’m not a huge fan of quoting software company executives, I did like a comment on the announcement by Autodesk’s vice president of Manufacturing Solutions Division, Buzz Kross, who commented that “The Inventor Community can concentrate on designing and innovating new products instead of wasting time and effort modeling parts they don’t manufacture.”

Elsewhere, Blue Ridge Numerics, developer of CFdesign, announced details of the work its done to integrate its Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) system into the new look, feel and functioanlity of Inventor 2010. What I found interesting is how the company has jumped all over technology initially availabel on Autodesk Labs (such as shrinkwrap) which has now been built into the system proper. I could go on, but as ever, Derrek Cooper at Blue Ridge, has the details for you in a quick video (seriously, I should hire the Coop, he’s a whiz with this stuff)..

Finally, Okino Computer Graphics, a CGI and visualisation data translation specialist, is now shipping software products which have received “Autodesk Inventor 2010 Certification”. This will allow the “crack-free geometry, hierarchy (assembly data) and materials to be transferred cleanly and robustly from native disk-based Autodesk Inventor files or from a running copy of the Autodesk Inventor directly into any Okino data-conversion-compliant program.” those include systems like 3ds Max and Maya, EON Reality software, Cinema-4D, Visual Components’ 3DCreate to name but a few.

Despite the emergence of multiple CPU cores in individual workstations (the standard is now 4 cores) most CAE applications still can’t harness all the available power, probably never will until there’s a major architectural change, and many max out at two cores. The way round this is to use clusters, or to put it simply a series of desktop computers directly connected together with some clever stuff.

Blue Ridge Numericsis the latest CFD vendor to promote its own cluster solution, which works with Microsoft Windows HPC networks. (I’m not hugely familiar with cluster technology, but I do know that Microsoft introduced its cluster technology a few years back, in response to the success of Linux in this sector.)

Blue Ridge’s CFdesign high performance computing (HPC) Module works directly with Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition, and with a little tinkering can turn two or more desktop workstations into a mini cluster. As with a single workstation, there is a limit to the performance gains you can get but Blue Ridge is quoting a maximum reduction in simulation time of 550% for a four node, 16 core setup. From what I can ascertain it looks like there might be a little exaggeration here as the baseline appears to be taken from a single core workstation.

Blue Ridge told me last year that in a single multi core workstation one can expect speed increases in CFdesign of up to 140% (Intel) to 160% (AMD), though I would imagine Intel has now got faster with the introduction of the Core i7, which receives its data directly from system RAM rather than going via a front side bus (FSB).

So by my rough calculations, the performance increase from a single multi core workstation to a four node, 16 core cluster, would be about 350%, which still is not to be sniffed at (I’m sure Blue Ridge will correct me if I’m wrong here).

Percentages aside it’s certainly a very interesting technology and I look forward to test-driving it in the near future. I’d better dust off my copy of Windows HPC cluster for Dummies first though.

www.cfdesign.com

The image above shows simulation results from a Quick Natural Convection on LED light design shown with CFdesign v10 new user interface - nifty looking eh?

Blue Ridge Numerics (at 1pm, UK time today to be exact), released details of the latest release of its CFD application, CFDesign. The big ticket items for this rev seem to be a new user interface, greater CAD integration, better design review features and interactive void filling and external volume creation.

Interesting, UI changes aside (which look pretty good as you can see), the CAD associativity interested me. There are two schools of thought here. To built the app directly within the CAD interface, or to build it standalone and provide tight links. The two are not always as clear-cut as they seem. In all fairness, CFDesign has always been in the Standalone/integrated camp and this release sees that worked on with the ability to extract much more from the CAD data, such as model orientation, part and background, part names and material properties. Blue Ridge also talks about mapping of mouse functions. I guess that this means the user will load CAD data from their workhorse tool and the system can be set to mimic the user interaction methods of that CAD system. Also of interest is the new multi-view mode, which allows you to work with different analysis results sets and have the system synchronise the panning, zooming and rotation of the views. Other updates include interactive void filling and external volume creation meaning you don’t have to do it your CAD system.

Lastly, Blue Ridge has also introduce CFD-tv which provides users with “on-demand, task-specific training in a Web 2.0 format that will appeal to multi-tasking engineers who want to add CFD to their armory.” Apparently, each CFD-tv episode is a short video segment led by a CFdesign power user intended to answer commonly asked questions.

There will of course be a full, indepth review of CFDesign 10 in the next issue of DEVELOP3D - so make sure you sign up for a subscription.