Leap 71 has open sourced its foundational computational design technology, voxel-based geometry kernel PicoGK and a library for simple shape generation called ShapeKernel, which forms the basis for all the company’s Computational Engineering Models.
Leap 71 founder and CEO Josefine Lissner, explained that there is a need for dramatically faster design of technical products. “At our company, we are creating sophisticated machinery using Computational Engineering, in fields from electric mobility to space propulsion; from hydraulic systems, to heat exchangers. But Computational Engineering needs to become a global movement, and any movement needs to be rooted in Free and Open-Source Software.”
Since its release, Lissner has added that improved usability and more available libraries will be made available in order to make it easy for anyone to get started with computational design.
One of the first additions is a lattice library that can be used for lightweighting infills, biomimetric tissue engineering and metamaterials. It offers a number of example implementations for cell arrays (regular, noisy and conformal), lattice unit cells (beam- and spline-based) and beam thickness distributions (global and local).
“It is written in a way that it offers maximal flexibility for extension” explains Lissner. “It is very easy to create your own lattice unit cells and customise all workflow components. We are pursuing a white-box approach here, so everyone can check out the source code and develop more sophisticated features on top.”
The Dubai-based company follows the example of other United Arab Emirates entities, which have recently opened their AI models for free to the public for both non-commercial and commercial use.
In recent news, it has announced a collaboration with European space heavyweight The Exploration Company, to build rocket engines for their cargo resupply spacecraft. Leap 71 will also showcase its work on efficient electric motors and heat exchangers at the COP 28 climate conference at the end of November.
Lin Kayser, co-founder of Leap 71, added: “Humanity is entering a critical phase, where we need to out-innovate some of our global challenges. Accelerating the speed at which new technologies can be invented and brought to market is paramount. This needs to happen broadly and cannot be done by just one company.
“PicoGK is one important step on the path to global adoption of this paradigm.”
The technology is available immediately under the Apache 2.0 Open-Source License on LEAP 71’s Github repository.
