Editor’s Pick: EnSight Targets CAD, CAE Postprocessing, Visualization, and Communication

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

Everyone knows the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But most engineers and scientists also know that the work you can put into postprocessing your CAE analysis to get some sort of image often turns that expression into, “an image works up a thousand curse words.” CEI—Computational Engineering International—has been at the forefront of developing high-level CAE post-processing, visualization, and communication for years. With its introduction of a new version of EnSight Lite, the company makes high-quality graphics and rendering of engineering models accessible for any sized business.

Version 9.0 of EnSight Lite is a member of the EnSight family of products. The family spans functionality ranging from a CFD-dedicated edition to applications designed for cluster computing, parallel processing, and immersive virtual reality environments. What they all have in common is an open data format, user-friendly interface,  and CAD reader and CAE solver interfaces designed to make postprocessing on the individual or enterprise level easy and fast.

That, of course, could leave you with the impression that the “Lite” in EnSight Lite means that this is somehow a less-filling product. Not so.

EnSight Lite is possible because the advances in 32-bit and 64-bit desktop workstation technology mean that engineering workstations can now do high-end graphics and rendering of complex CAE images efficiently. This, in turn, means that small- and mid-sized organizations can use EnSight Lite to not only “maximize their post-processing investment across the enterprise,” as CEI says, but to compete on a level that they might not have been able to previously.

EnSight Lite supports—natively—more than 60 FEA, CFD, structural, crash, dynamics, and hydrocode analysis solvers as well as popular MCAD applications like CATIA,  Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire, and NX. You can create animations of your models on the fly, and share results with collaborators online or through a video file. (The free viewer helps in that regard.) And it is designed to be easy to operate:  Many of the controls are available as right clicks, and right-click menus are context-sensitive so you don’t have to wander around looking for what you want to do.

EnSight Lite offers a bunch more features and a lot more functionality than I’ve covered here. You can read about that in today’s Pick of the Week write-up and by exploring the links at the end of the write-up. Hit the comparison chart to see specific tools and functionality across the product line.

Still, the key to EnSight Lite is that it brings CEI’s heritage of high-end post-processing prowess to engineering workstations. That’s worth a look in my opinion.

Thanks, pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large,  Desktop Engineering Magazine

Read today’s Pick of the Week