If you're running several analysis or simulation codes, then the critical result inspection and reporting process is often fragmented. A single, cross platform tool could be just the ticket.

In the world of analysis and simulation, the workflow usually follows the pre-process, compute, post process workflow. Unlike many other engineering and design disciplines, the software is in many respects fragmented, with companies offering a wealth of pre- and post-processors as well as solving engines aplenty – but often the problem is that if you’re running several solvers (for different purposes) and different post-processors the reporting process can become very complex. Surely a better way would be to use the pre-processor code you need, then use a common post-processor for interrogating, inspecting and reporting on your analysis and simulation data?

In addition, it’s worth considering that you’re typically going to need to do more than just create fringe and contour plots and dive into your data to compare not just single datasets, but those generated through a range of iterative processes. After all, if you’re looking to create the optimum product, then the more information you have about its behaviour, the greater the chances are of achieving exactly that.

The start point for any such software is always going to be loading the data into the system. TecPlot 360 includes a range of options for handling datasets from a variety of sources. The developer’s background is within the CFD industry, so the availability of CGNS, Fluent, KIVA, and PLOT3D including name and boundary files shouldn’t come as a surprise. In addition, the system allows you to directly read FEA-focussed datasets from Abaqus, Ansys, Fidap, LS-Dyna, MSC.Nastran, MSC.Patran, PAM-Crash, SDRC-Ideas. In addition to this, the system can also process Excel or comma/space delimited files, with the ability to process those for titles, variables and data, set filters and the like. What this means is that you can load your data and preview it in a very quick time frame.

Once your data is in the system, you have an astounding amount of tools available to firstly inspect your data then work through the process of managing that data sensibly, gathering the information you require from the result data and finally output media to support the reporting process. TecPlot, in addition to providing the usual interactive slicing/sectioning, iso-surface creation and advanced particle tracing tools, has been developed to allow the user to bring extremely large and multiple datasets into the same session for comparison and verification. The key here is that the system provides you with the tools to do this efficiently so that you’re not spending an inordinate amount of time managing your data. This is not surprising given the developer’s background in the Aerospace industry.

Existing functionality, such as zones, shows this off. A data file can be divided into different zones (either automatically or manually), so you can inspect each individually – making manipulation of the data more efficient. Each zone might typically be defined based on physical coordinates or sub-assembly/system, or zones may be based on the material. Another good example is that the latest release makes the handling and exploration of data much more efficient by using a ‘load on demand’ concept. This means that the system only holds the exact data you’re using in memory at a particular time, rather than the complete dataset. You might be looking at a temperature contour, which loads the X, Y, Z and Temperature values.

Next, you might want to switch to a new variable to contour (i.e., Pressure -TecPlot loads the Pressure values and unloads Temperature – previous versions and other systems would need all the data in memory).

Of course, data loading and management are all very interesting, but what you want to do is create the plots you need to gain a better understanding of how your product is behaving. One of the most powerful capabilities within this system is the ability to load and visualsze multiple datasets in a single session. This means that you can cross reference data, allowing you to do many things simultaneously, from comparing different studies and materials, forces and load cases. But perhaps for me, two of the most interesting applications are the ability to present simulated data alongside test data plus the capability to combine both FEA and CFD data to visualise of fluid-structure interaction.

Once you have your plots, containing multiple frames and cross-referenced results data for example, what you really need is to be able to output those representations for use in your reporting. Of course, these days, reports can be much more than simple static printed documents. TecPlot, as you’d expect, allows you to either copy/paste plot data or paste directly into PowerPoint, Word and Microsoft Office applications, but it also allows you to do much more.

Firstly, you can output very high quality vector and raster formats for inclusion in reports and for use on the Web (including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, WMF, PostScript and EPS). Secondly, it allows you to take your animation visuals and use them in PowerPoint (or any other media-ready application, such as the Office tools, PDF) or publish them directly to the Web.

Platform & hardware independence

Alongside the functionality within the Tecplot product, another thing I found interesting was the support that the system has for a wide number of different hardware and software platforms. Dealing with hardware first, the developers have realised that multi-processor Linux and Windows workstations are becoming a standard for engineering users and prior to the release of Tecplot 360, Tecplot was single-threaded and not able to take advantage of the maximum resources available. This has changed with the Tecplot 360 release as intensive computing operations are spread across all available CPUs. In this specific instance this means that computationally heavy tasks, such as generating stream-traces, slices, and iso-surfaces are all the more efficient – allowing you to get the results visualisation you want and make decisions based on them in a much shorter timeframe.

In terms of software platform support, Tecplot 360 is available for installation on several different platforms. Of course, it is available on all flavours of Windows XP, but also supports numerous Unix variants (such as HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris and AIX), although support for these might wane as such workstations are phased out in the coming years. It also supports Linux on 32- and 64-bit Intel and AMD hardware. And finally, and perhaps uniquely, for those using the Apple platform, the system also supports 32- and 64-bit Mac OS X.

In conclusion

When you’re looking at adopting analysis and simulation as part of your product development process, you need to ensure that it dovetails into the complete process. While the CAD companies are, in many respects, taking care of the associativity between CAD and CAE/FEA/CFD, perhaps the real bottleneck is still the creation of report and documentation of the simulation work you carry out. After all, in these days of traceability and holistic documentation for legal and regulatory requirements, you need to be sure that those vital documents are created accurately and quickly, so that you can get back to the core challenges of improving product quality, reducing cost and bringing innovative products to market.

TecPlot 360 offers a massive range of platform-independent tools, many of which we’ve glossed over here, that allow you to take your raw analysis data, interrogate it, make decisions based on that information, then document the process – all in a manner that is as efficient as possible, however large and unwieldy that data might be.