7 ms·

FEATool Multiphysics – Physics Simulation Made Easy

47 points by precsim 6y ago

heisenzombie 6y ago
Is this trying to be an open source COMSOL?
- caturopath 6y ago
  Looks like it's not open source http://forum.featool.com/Queries-about-software-license-td20.html http://forum.featool.com/Queries-about-software-license-td20... They mention using some open source solvers, so in that sense you could say that the open source COSMOL was already sitting around :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- precsim 6y ago
  The first versions were open source asking for funding by donations. Although I would have really liked for FEATool to be open source (and I think such as tool would be ideally suited as such), unfortunately not having any form of funding but my personal savings, it was needless to say financially unsustainable (not to say that actually its financially much easier now).
zokier 6y ago
Physics simulation is imho one of the things that feel like they should be easy but in reality is really difficult. And not talking about anything super fancy, just basic classical mechanics. One of my dream projects would be to glue physics engine like Project Chrono[1] with modeling kernel like Open CASCADE[2], and some (FOSS) CAD (solvespace[3]?) to make an user friendly package to be able to setup simple scenes for simulation. [1] https://projectchrono.org/ https://projectchrono.org/ [2] http://www.opencascade.com/content/open-source-core-technology http://www.opencascade.com/content/open-source-core-technolo... [3] http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl
- aryoung5 6y ago
  Hey, you can actually use Open Cascade with ProjectChrono right now: http://api.projectchrono.org/group__cascade__module.html http://api.projectchrono.org/group__cascade__module.html. There are also some nice tutorials (http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_demo_robot.html http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_demo_robot.html). A Solidworks add-in was also made: http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_table_of_content_chrono_solidworks.html http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_table_of_content_chron.... I've only used Chrono::Sensor, Chrono::Vehicle, PyChrono and I work on a new module called SynChrono. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
precsim 6y ago
Don't really know how this ended up on the front page now, but the overall "idea" that I have yet to find anyone else understand and believe in (even my old prof and colleagues don't seem to "get it"), is that: wouldn't it be great if there was a unified, ideally simple, interface from which you could just select any solver by the click of a button, whether you wanted to use OpenFOAM, FEniCS, or maybe even Ansys, etc. Then you could set up your simulation model once, and run it on "any" and many solvers (to validate and check results etc.). So that's what I've been trying to do by myself for the past 7 years or so. For better or worse it initially seemed like a good idea to use Matlab/Octave, but have been planning to eventually move either to Python or Pascal/Delphi backend.
- JorgeGT 6y ago
  I agree, in my lab our typical solution is a MATLAB/Python routine managing the simulations (submitting to a cluster, gathering the results, producing a report via LaTeX, changing some parameters, submitting again...) but these routines needs to be heavily customized for each project, version of the software, cluster, etc. and they always end being very fragile.
  - precsim 6y ago
    Yes, I think the initial simulation definition/set up can be "easy", but once you get to parallel shared memory clusters it unfortunately have to be much more hands on. I had hoped to eventually not only allow running individual solvers from a single interface, but also allow coupling them similar to PreCICE [1], however making that easy to use is something I've not dared attempt yet. [1]: https://www.precice.org https://www.precice.org
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Is there really much value checking multiple solvers if you use the same pre-post which might introduce the same common errors, including user error, into all of them? I know it would be handy from time to time but validating solvers against each other seems like a small thing for an entire pre-post to be built around. It sounds a bit like compiling your software with multiple compilers to make sure it's correct. The bugs aren't usually in the compilers.
lopmotr 6y ago
It's a bit unclear who the target market is. Is it scientists? It doesn't seem to be for typical engineers who have a lot of very specific needs in FEA software. I can't see much aimed at them on the website. Examples of big difficult features that are useful for engineers are robust contact, automatic contact detection, plasticity, post-buckling, geometry defeaturing, automatic midplane extraction for shells, associativity with CAD models, being Ansys or Abaqus (because everyone knows and trusts them), not having to write scripts, not having to convert imperial units to a coherent system, not having to learn a huge complex pile of software (some tension with all the other requirements!), etc. Easy to use FEA is a seemingly impossible goal because of the huge range of features that some users want and other users don't want as well as the fact that it has to combine a lot of concepts just don't seem to naturally fit well into any simple organizing principle for the user. Then there's the zillions of man-hours to do it all.
- precsim 6y ago
  Thanks for the honest feedback. I started building FEATool far too many years ago not getting anywhere in academia after too many postdocs, since it was the one thing I'm passionate about and good at and I felt was "missing" when I was working. But yes, it seems more and more that each user has a very specific problem that they want to solve which is very hard to generalize for. And although I still think (most if not all) software could be much more user friendly, I probably have taken on more than I can chew (I only keep going now since I feel I have no choice with the years I've already invested).
  - unemphysbro 6y ago
    Really cool project. I've used comsol in the past for some fluidics simulations. I agree, the open source multiphysics packages come with a steep learning curve (easier for the more tech literate). How did you get out of the post-doc loop?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - 6y ago
ktpsns 6y ago
Here is why the "one physics simulation should cover it all" idea will never work: The word "physics" is just too broad. Is it about particle simulation (classical N-body simulations)? Or is it about fluid simulation (classical CFD = computational fluid dynamics, or classical Navier-stokes)? Is it about a game engine, digital art or just for a fancy GUI? What about the hardware, should we use GPGPUs, distributed computing or so? Talking about the output, what is it the user is actually interested in? Some direct simulation outcome, such as trajectories or densities, still images, time series or some derived quantities? Is the user capable of programming in some language, is interface scripting even required? Does she actually prefer a CLI? There are a lot of different industries with different needs. For certain engineering tasks (such as aviation), there are long standing tools which work fine and people are used to. For hobbyists or the gaming industry, the same applies. Disclaimer: I am a theoretical/computational physicist. Maybe I am too much thinking about simulating heavy ion collisions or black hole mergers, but given the physical problem you want to solve, there are quite different numerical methods applied. This applies for fundamental concepts: Besides the traditional linear algebra/partial differential equation solving, there are statistical approaches and nowadays artificial intelligence for obtaining a solution to a problem in a shorter time. The ways how to model physical reality are as diverse as the physical problems.
- regularfry 6y ago
  How is "one physics simulation should cover it" relevant?
  - ktpsns 6y ago
    This was a meta post considering a couple of posts such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24905261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24905261
- fsh 6y ago
  Commercial multiphysics simulators such as COMSOL are widely used in engineering and experimental physics. Of course they cannot cover all possible use cases, but they are perfectly fine for the vast majority of simulations.
peterwoerner 6y ago
Couple of comments. Seems like you are just comsol. As someone who does this 50+ hours a week in industry (although only structural modelling but frequently coupled with optics/heat transfer/) and is reasonably well versed in the up and coming research I have a couple of questions (or would have if I was a potential buyer). Can you mix 1D-2D-and 3D elements (I know fenics cannot). But for complex assemblies, making idealized representations is typically worthwhile (and typically necessary if anything is e.g. bolted together). Can you even mix different types of 3D elements (e.g. tets/pyramids/wedges/hexs). The future of finite element modeling is probably is nurbs-enhanced or IGES-enhanced. Why are you building the past/current instead of the future? Can your solvers do HP-refinement? Or even just H refinement. Can you do glued contacts? How much do I have to know about the time stepping scheme, or does your software work that out for you. If I am doing thermal control or dynamic control can you handle that (I like that it interfaces with matlab so I can plug it into simulink--you should hammer on that in your copy--that is a really nice differentiating factor for people who would use FEA to drive control e.g. smart materials people, active optics, aerodynamic control people). How easy is it to do optimizations? For instance (at home) I keep thinking about wanting to optimize a piezoelectric diagram fan like GE uses in their lights but for computers, how much easier is that going to be than just figuring out an open source software on my own. Why FENICS and not DEAL.II or MOOSE (I don't know, I am just curious. I used to use FENICs but got frustrated because their input syntax kept changing on me. Also really cool. I have been thinking about writing software in this space but more nichy for about the past year and am beginning to get started, any interest in collaboration? Also if you want to ask me questions about my thinking as a user who thinks a lot in these problems space, feel free to email me (I will want it to move to a phone call, but don't want to post my phone number on hacker news).
- phkahler 6y ago
  In the commercial space I always refer people to https://www.altair.com/inspire/ https://www.altair.com/inspire/ Which now uses SomSolid for analysis. From what I've heard (used to work there, still know people) it is way ahead of other FEA solvers. You can also find easy access to 3rd party tools through Altairs licensing model.

47 points by precsim 6y ago

heisenzombie 6y ago

Is this trying to be an open source COMSOL?

caturopath 6y ago
Looks like it's not open source http://forum.featool.com/Queries-about-software-license-td20.html http://forum.featool.com/Queries-about-software-license-td20... They mention using some open source solvers, so in that sense you could say that the open source COSMOL was already sitting around :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
precsim 6y ago
The first versions were open source asking for funding by donations. Although I would have really liked for FEATool to be open source (and I think such as tool would be ideally suited as such), unfortunately not having any form of funding but my personal savings, it was needless to say financially unsustainable (not to say that actually its financially much easier now).

zokier 6y ago

Physics simulation is imho one of the things that feel like they should be easy but in reality is really difficult. And not talking about anything super fancy, just basic classical mechanics. One of my dream projects would be to glue physics engine like Project Chrono[1] with modeling kernel like Open CASCADE[2], and some (FOSS) CAD (solvespace[3]?) to make an user friendly package to be able to setup simple scenes for simulation. [1] https://projectchrono.org/ https://projectchrono.org/ [2] http://www.opencascade.com/content/open-source-core-technology http://www.opencascade.com/content/open-source-core-technolo... [3] http://solvespace.com/index.pl http://solvespace.com/index.pl

aryoung5 6y ago
Hey, you can actually use Open Cascade with ProjectChrono right now: http://api.projectchrono.org/group__cascade__module.html http://api.projectchrono.org/group__cascade__module.html. There are also some nice tutorials (http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_demo_robot.html http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_demo_robot.html). A Solidworks add-in was also made: http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_table_of_content_chrono_solidworks.html http://api.projectchrono.org/tutorial_table_of_content_chron.... I've only used Chrono::Sensor, Chrono::Vehicle, PyChrono and I work on a new module called SynChrono. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

precsim 6y ago

Don't really know how this ended up on the front page now, but the overall "idea" that I have yet to find anyone else understand and believe in (even my old prof and colleagues don't seem to "get it"), is that: wouldn't it be great if there was a unified, ideally simple, interface from which you could just select any solver by the click of a button, whether you wanted to use OpenFOAM, FEniCS, or maybe even Ansys, etc. Then you could set up your simulation model once, and run it on "any" and many solvers (to validate and check results etc.). So that's what I've been trying to do by myself for the past 7 years or so. For better or worse it initially seemed like a good idea to use Matlab/Octave, but have been planning to eventually move either to Python or Pascal/Delphi backend.

JorgeGT 6y ago
I agree, in my lab our typical solution is a MATLAB/Python routine managing the simulations (submitting to a cluster, gathering the results, producing a report via LaTeX, changing some parameters, submitting again...) but these routines needs to be heavily customized for each project, version of the software, cluster, etc. and they always end being very fragile.
- precsim 6y ago
  Yes, I think the initial simulation definition/set up can be "easy", but once you get to parallel shared memory clusters it unfortunately have to be much more hands on. I had hoped to eventually not only allow running individual solvers from a single interface, but also allow coupling them similar to PreCICE [1], however making that easy to use is something I've not dared attempt yet. [1]: https://www.precice.org https://www.precice.org
lopmotr 6y ago
Is there really much value checking multiple solvers if you use the same pre-post which might introduce the same common errors, including user error, into all of them? I know it would be handy from time to time but validating solvers against each other seems like a small thing for an entire pre-post to be built around. It sounds a bit like compiling your software with multiple compilers to make sure it's correct. The bugs aren't usually in the compilers.

lopmotr 6y ago

It's a bit unclear who the target market is. Is it scientists? It doesn't seem to be for typical engineers who have a lot of very specific needs in FEA software. I can't see much aimed at them on the website. Examples of big difficult features that are useful for engineers are robust contact, automatic contact detection, plasticity, post-buckling, geometry defeaturing, automatic midplane extraction for shells, associativity with CAD models, being Ansys or Abaqus (because everyone knows and trusts them), not having to write scripts, not having to convert imperial units to a coherent system, not having to learn a huge complex pile of software (some tension with all the other requirements!), etc. Easy to use FEA is a seemingly impossible goal because of the huge range of features that some users want and other users don't want as well as the fact that it has to combine a lot of concepts just don't seem to naturally fit well into any simple organizing principle for the user. Then there's the zillions of man-hours to do it all.

precsim 6y ago
Thanks for the honest feedback. I started building FEATool far too many years ago not getting anywhere in academia after too many postdocs, since it was the one thing I'm passionate about and good at and I felt was "missing" when I was working. But yes, it seems more and more that each user has a very specific problem that they want to solve which is very hard to generalize for. And although I still think (most if not all) software could be much more user friendly, I probably have taken on more than I can chew (I only keep going now since I feel I have no choice with the years I've already invested).
- unemphysbro 6y ago
  Really cool project. I've used comsol in the past for some fluidics simulations. I agree, the open source multiphysics packages come with a steep learning curve (easier for the more tech literate). How did you get out of the post-doc loop?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- 6y ago

ktpsns 6y ago

Here is why the "one physics simulation should cover it all" idea will never work: The word "physics" is just too broad. Is it about particle simulation (classical N-body simulations)? Or is it about fluid simulation (classical CFD = computational fluid dynamics, or classical Navier-stokes)? Is it about a game engine, digital art or just for a fancy GUI? What about the hardware, should we use GPGPUs, distributed computing or so? Talking about the output, what is it the user is actually interested in? Some direct simulation outcome, such as trajectories or densities, still images, time series or some derived quantities? Is the user capable of programming in some language, is interface scripting even required? Does she actually prefer a CLI? There are a lot of different industries with different needs. For certain engineering tasks (such as aviation), there are long standing tools which work fine and people are used to. For hobbyists or the gaming industry, the same applies. Disclaimer: I am a theoretical/computational physicist. Maybe I am too much thinking about simulating heavy ion collisions or black hole mergers, but given the physical problem you want to solve, there are quite different numerical methods applied. This applies for fundamental concepts: Besides the traditional linear algebra/partial differential equation solving, there are statistical approaches and nowadays artificial intelligence for obtaining a solution to a problem in a shorter time. The ways how to model physical reality are as diverse as the physical problems.

regularfry 6y ago
How is "one physics simulation should cover it" relevant?
- ktpsns 6y ago
  This was a meta post considering a couple of posts such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24905261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24905261
fsh 6y ago
Commercial multiphysics simulators such as COMSOL are widely used in engineering and experimental physics. Of course they cannot cover all possible use cases, but they are perfectly fine for the vast majority of simulations.

peterwoerner 6y ago

Couple of comments. Seems like you are just comsol. As someone who does this 50+ hours a week in industry (although only structural modelling but frequently coupled with optics/heat transfer/) and is reasonably well versed in the up and coming research I have a couple of questions (or would have if I was a potential buyer). Can you mix 1D-2D-and 3D elements (I know fenics cannot). But for complex assemblies, making idealized representations is typically worthwhile (and typically necessary if anything is e.g. bolted together). Can you even mix different types of 3D elements (e.g. tets/pyramids/wedges/hexs). The future of finite element modeling is probably is nurbs-enhanced or IGES-enhanced. Why are you building the past/current instead of the future? Can your solvers do HP-refinement? Or even just H refinement. Can you do glued contacts? How much do I have to know about the time stepping scheme, or does your software work that out for you. If I am doing thermal control or dynamic control can you handle that (I like that it interfaces with matlab so I can plug it into simulink--you should hammer on that in your copy--that is a really nice differentiating factor for people who would use FEA to drive control e.g. smart materials people, active optics, aerodynamic control people). How easy is it to do optimizations? For instance (at home) I keep thinking about wanting to optimize a piezoelectric diagram fan like GE uses in their lights but for computers, how much easier is that going to be than just figuring out an open source software on my own. Why FENICS and not DEAL.II or MOOSE (I don't know, I am just curious. I used to use FENICs but got frustrated because their input syntax kept changing on me. Also really cool. I have been thinking about writing software in this space but more nichy for about the past year and am beginning to get started, any interest in collaboration? Also if you want to ask me questions about my thinking as a user who thinks a lot in these problems space, feel free to email me (I will want it to move to a phone call, but don't want to post my phone number on hacker news).

phkahler 6y ago
In the commercial space I always refer people to https://www.altair.com/inspire/ https://www.altair.com/inspire/ Which now uses SomSolid for analysis. From what I've heard (used to work there, still know people) it is way ahead of other FEA solvers. You can also find easy access to 3rd party tools through Altairs licensing model.