Editor’s Pick: Analysis and Scripting Solution Upgraded

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

Probably the most understated press release I’ve come across in years arrived in the DE editor’s mailbox a few days ago. It was from Dynamic Design Solutions, a Belgian outfit that has been quietly going about its business for more than 15 years. Realizing that my memory of this company and its wares was no substitute for checking out some facts, I thought it my duty to go and see what I could learn about their flagship product, FEMtools. I’ll get back to why this release was so understated in a few lines.

Dynamic Design Solutions makes a suite of analysis and scripting software that go under the umbrella name FEMtools. FEM, I sure you guessed, means finite element method. Basically, FEMtools are for validating your simulation models, optimizing engineering designs, and integrating as well as automating simulation processes. It’s platform- and solver-independent.

What FEMtools really seems quite able to do is give you what you need to extend and customize your pre- and post-processors as well as your solver. It has interfaces for NASTRAN, Abaqus, and ANSYS, and it has functionality for pre-test and correlation analyses, structural optimization,  static and dynamic analysis, and so forth.

The newest version, 3.5, introduces experimental modal analysis, new functionality for pretest analysis, and a variety of optimization features. The company says FEMtools 3.5 has numerous user-requested enhancements. You can read all about the upgrades in today’s Pick of the Week write-up.

So what really struck me about this press release? Well, it was a small line at the end of what was otherwise a very brief write-up: “Oh,  and one more thing. FEMtools 3.5 will also be released for Mac OS 64-bit.”

That inspired bit of prose, dear reader, tells me a couple of things about the product and about the company. First, it tells me that the people at Dynamic Design Solutions are approachable. I bet you that the users have been asking for a Mac OS version of FEMtools for a while, and all that the company could say is that they were working on it. Now the promise is fulfilled. Second, it tells me that they have confidence in their craftsmanship. That’s good stuff.

So, please go and read today’s Pick of the Week new product write-up, then use the links to wander over to the Dynamic Design Solutions’  website and see some more for yourself. A company with the understated confidence in itself and its work, as well as one that can make a big announcement like supporting the Mac with a wink, just might make a set of tools that’ll give you greater confidence in what it is that you do.

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s Pick of the Week new product write-up.