Open Source Engineering Tools? 73
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?"
KTechLab (Score:2, Informative)
Re:KTechLab (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:2, Informative)
BRL-CAD (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Yes, BRL (Ballistic Research Laboratory, US Army) CAD is as good as it gets in mechanical open-source CAD tools. Try building your own tanks [sourceforge.net]
with anything else!
I wish we (electrical engineers) would have something compatible in OSS world -- as much as I like gEDA, it is NOT on the level of Cadence, etc.
Speaking of other simulation tools, like FEM/EM/etc., do you know about the (NASA/JPL-founded, I think) Op [openchannelsoftware.com]
Re:BRL-CAD (Score:1)
another CAD program (Score:2, Informative)
Is this helpful to you, or have I misunderstood the question?
QCAD [ribbonsoft.com]
Re:another CAD program (Score:2)
Re:BRL-CAD (Score:1)
"Research & Analysis Programs - Lethality "
http://www.arl.army.mil/main/Main/default.cfm?Act
Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2, Insightful)
(Meanwhile back in reality, open source users are overjoyed that they finally have a wordprocessor that arguably equals MS Word.)
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:3)
For CAD you may want to look at http://www.brlcad.org/ [brlcad.org]
Good luck.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:3, Insightful)
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 res
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:1)
As for Open Office, I wonder if any of it was written in people's spare time. Everything I've read indicates a cathedral project that's 90% Sun, 10% Other corporations.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:1)
That said, I find that software is a bit nicer than parts since massaging code is fundamentally less resource-intensive than matter bashing (time vs. time plus matter). I've often thought that I should sit and write my own CAD/simulation app (I have several started but, like most programmers, my code
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
Post your idle software to Sourceforge, and then an Ask Slashdot like this:
"Any good developers that would like to help me with making a free CAD tool? I have already the 5%, I need you to help me with the rest!"
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
WRONG!
The whole point of the free software movement is not monetary, ut ethical.
Free software ideals state that proprietary software takes freedom away from users.
The freedom to modify it, the freedom to share, and the freedom to sh
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I don't remember income ever being apart of it. It's always been about Free as in Freedom, not as in beer.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
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?
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:5, Informative)
Have you looked at http://www.openworkbench.org/ [openworkbench.org]? It's a formerly commercial PM package that went opensource a while back.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:3, Informative)
Try this one... (Score:2)
It aparrantly used to be called MrProject.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:2)
Template for Answers (Score:2)
"I just looked up what programs seem to be dedicated to doing what "obscure expensive niche software that is only of interest to a tiny audience" does. I used Wikipedia's List of open source software [wikipedia.org] or a google search or something similar. If I actually cite my source, it is only to ridicule 1)you for asking in the first place 2)Slashdot editors for actually posting your garbage. I haven't actually used the software,
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:1)
only of interest to a tiny audience
These sorts of software tools are useful to anyone, and any organisation, that deals with engineering or invention. Any application where mathematical and scientific theory can be analysed and applied to the 'real world' is undoubtedly useful to all users of the end product. Whether this type of software is used by a majority or not, the majority of the world's population will feel it's effects through the improvement of products and services analysed by the software.
Re:Ask Slashdot Template (Score:4, Interesting)
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/ [octave.org] and OpenDX http://www.opendx.org/ [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.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're really really hard.
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:5, Interesting)
There is also liability involved when doing engineering software.
But OpenSource is alive and well in this arena. http://www.opendwg.org/ [opendwg.org] is just one example.
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:1)
Not really. The liability is on the person using your software. If a bridge falls, its the civil engineer who certified the plans that is held liable. The worst thing that could happen is that the engineer goes to jail and they no longer need a license for your software.
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:1)
I normally write under a fixed sum contract and the company that hires me owns the code. I make a tidy income maintaining the code as the company upgrades to new hardware.
If I sign a contract to produce code that implements a given algorithm and there is a hidden flaw that appears later, the engineer goes to jail and the company sues me. Not exactly the way I want to spend my retirement
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:2)
You basicly need either the main developers to be experts in their fields, or to be working very closely with people who are. Otherwise such a product is doomed to failure.
That said- I'd love to see some FOSS engineering tools. Its a necessary step to spreadi
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Same reason classical music is often overlooked (Score:1)
The classes were awful, and being the oldest guy in the room didn't do much for me personally. I was a wiz in chemistry in high school, but very much tired of it by 33, yet they had me take high school chemistry AGAIN because I'm old.
Well, the labs were
$1000 budget for commercial quality? (Score:2)
Not much, unfortunately. Most commercial grade engineering apps run tens of thousands of dollars, raising to hundreds depending on the area of specialty. Telco software (for example) can easily raise this by an order of magnitude.
If your corporate budget is $1k, you should be happy with any FOSS software you can get.
Personally, I use Eagle for circuit design (it's not FOSS, but they have free linux, os x, and windows versions
Because it is a niche and it's hard to program. (Score:2)
As an aside, are there any thoughts on why the engineering applications appear to be so overlooked by the open source community?"
See subject.
Then, re-read the subject.
There is only an extremely small fraction of open source enthusiasts that need this sort of software or are even interested in it. The people that know how to program them and are interested in doing the work for this type of program for free are scant. There are probably projects underway.
File format
CAD is the biggest niche there is (Score:3, Informative)
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 [constructionweblinks.com]. That's $1.1 trillion [census.gov]. 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 [bls.gov]. The same then goes for the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, civil, landscape architect, and survey design professions. Also, most owners have a facilities d
Re:CAD is the biggest niche there is (Score:3)
Re:CAD is the biggest niche there is (Score:2)
CAD basically killed the concept of an independant "draftsman/designer", everyone is now a CAD operator (paid typist).
The software used quite often dictates what a designer can do and individuality is gone, resulting in a much more structured format of creativity. Since every manager and his twin can now review drawings before they are finished, we have a "design by consensus" situation.
That's good for people that are afraid of what they're doing, but bad for innovation.
Re:Because it is a niche and it's hard to program. (Score:2)
Open source doesn't even mean free as in beer.
Free software doesn't, either, but from a community POV, make more sense.
The actual question is: why are the benefits of free software overlooked by the CAD community?
3d modeling was arguably niche, and 3d enthusiasts joined together and liberated a great, but not commercially succesful project, Blender. They raised $ 100k , and now the software is free, GPL free, and it's movie-g
Look at available NASA tools (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Look at available NASA tools (Score:1)
<lament> As for NASTRAN, it is standard, but it is definitely not free [engineering-e.com] (unless there are other products with the same name, I guess). </lament>
try octave (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Check websites for all US Gov Labs (Score:2)
Oh, and NASA too, as someone else said.
I have seen these before when I searched for some such packages. Don't remember which site, as there was software at each site.
OpenCascade (Score:5, Informative)
It is a big package far more capable that most commercial apps and is open source.
Re:OpenCascade (Score:1)
It's not FOSS, but.... (Score:2)
Congragulations (Score:1)
CAx software (Score:3, Informative)
How could you leave out... (Score:2)
Numerical programs (Score:2)
As has been suggested, GNU Ocatve is great. It is mostly compatible with MatLab, and even more powerful if you use Octave Forge [sourceforge.net]. It satisfies all of your requirements: it uses "standard" matlab-like files, and is stand-alone. Some of the apps which say they require Matlab may work under Octave. If they don't, a few bug reports might urge the developers to try to make sure their programs work on Octave too (ma
Yes (Score:3, Informative)
You can go one of two ways for FEA.
As one promising application in open source FEA, take a look at Gmsh [geuz.org].
Part of the problem is that there is whole sequence to typical FEA
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
Another possibility (again, not libre, but free) is LyME [calerga.com] for the Palm Pilot. LyME is a matlab-like environment good enough for simple what-if scenarios.
Octave (Score:2)
Octave seems to have a bigger developer and user community (with Octave-Forge & similar repositories).
SAL: Scientific Applications on Linux (Score:1)
In general... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:In general... (Score:2)
Ah...But who is to say what itch you have?
Ah...but writing your own programs can be quite helpful (many mechanical engineers do some machining (sometimes
Open FOAM CFD software. (Score:1)
Elmer maybe? (Score:2)
http://www.csc.fi/elmer/ [www.csc.fi]