13 replies to this topic

[KenC]

...who want to design an F1 car, or your very own Joint Strike Fighter at home!

Of course, there are some restrictions, I believe you need to be a US resident to get theTetrUSS software.

http://aaac.larc.nas...ab/tetruss/mac/

Here's a snippet about the software:

TetrUSS is a suite of computer programs used for fluid dynamics and aerodynamics analysis and design. The TetrUSS system was developed at NASA Langley Research Center during the 1990s to bring the state-of-the-art in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to a higher level of utility, and is geared towards novices and experts alike. The software, originally developed for NASA internal applications, has gradually evolved into an efficient and versatile CFD tool used by engineers and scientists throughout the nation. TetrUSS has been employed in major NASA research programs such as High Speed Research / High Speed Civil Transport, Hyper-X, Abrupt Wing Stall, Mars Scout, Joint Strike Fighter, and many other smaller projects (some recent applications of Mac OS X TetrUSS are shown here). The software is widely used in other government organizations, the aerospace industry, academia, and non-aerospace industries such as automotive, bio-medical, and civil engineering. TetrUSS was the recipient of the prestigious NASA Software of the Year award in 1996.

TetrUSS is available free-of-charge to U.S. entities, citizens, and permanent residents. In addition, a free 1-week TetrUSS training course is available monthly at NASA Langley Research Center, and is strongly recommended (please note that we are only able to provide tech support to users who have taken the training course). To request TetrUSS for Mac OS X (or any of its components),http://aaac.larc.nas...ac/request.html. For questions about TetrUSS on Mac OS X, contact Craig Hunter, c.a.hunter@larc.nasa.gov

[jpf]

Pretty cool! I was going to download it, until I saw that the visualization software is $1500. Oh well.

[Colin]

>>...who want to design an F1 car, or your very own Joint Strike Fighter at home!<<

Uh, yeah. Do you have a 200+ processor mainframe dedicated to CFD at home? Didn't think so. Sorry, just defending my little bit of turf here.

On a side note considering the whole JSF reference, I am attending TetrUSS training during the first week of June - we don't use it now but it may prove useful for future JSF simulation. Its main advantage is being able to quickly build grids from complex geometry.

Colin O'Connor
Joint Strike Fighter Propulsion Systems
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Fort Worth, TX

[MrAerodynamicist]

Originally posted by Colin
Uh, yeah. Do you have a 200+ processor mainframe dedicated to CFD at home? Didn't think so. Sorry, just defending my little bit of turf here.

But what home using is going to know if the results are that accurate, keep the cell count way down, a bit of patience and in a week you can have some Colourful Fancy Diagrams

[KenC]

Originally posted by Colin
>>...who want to design an F1 car, or your very own Joint Strike Fighter at home!<<

Uh, yeah. Do you have a 200+ processor mainframe dedicated to CFD at home? Didn't think so. Sorry, just defending my little bit of turf here.

On a side note considering the whole JSF reference, I am attending TetrUSS training during the first week of June - we don't use it now but it may prove useful for future JSF simulation. Its main advantage is being able to quickly build grids from complex geometry.

Colin O'Connor
Joint Strike Fighter Propulsion Systems
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Fort Worth, TX

Since this is the Mac OS X version of TetrUSS, that I was referring to, I'm waiting for the new IBM G5 processor to be released! Of course, the tongue-in-cheek nature of my original post must not have been obvious without a smiley. And, the NASA press release referenced the JSF, first. Take your turf battle up with them!

Giving some more thought, couldn't I set up a home cluster using Pooch? I've got 7 Macs sitting around, all the way back to an old Mac Plus! O, right, TetrUSS won't work on the Plus. Okay, limit that cluster to just 4 Macs then. Oh, well, I suppose it'll take a lifetime for my little cluster to do anything useful.

[Colin]

Colourful Fancy Diagrams

Or Colorful Fluid Dynamics (no u in color over here)
Or Cartoons For Dickheads (or Dolts, or Dorks, take your pick)
Or Commonly Full of Dung
Or Code F---ed up all Day

I can keep going, I made up the last two.

[Christiaan]

I am quite curious as to why its only available to American citizens

[desmo]

Due to an idiotic law against "dual use" technologies being banned for export, the idea being that certain technologies could be used by terrorists against the US. Bans the export of all sorts of useful technologies that have little or no potential use by terrorists. Concieved by politicians, then brought to the nth degree of idiocy by bureaucrats.

[Christiaan]

Interesting, idiotic, but interesting nonetheless. My girlfriend has a US passport. I'll get her to get it for me

[Colin]

Interesting, idiotic, but interesting nonetheless. My girlfriend has a US passport. I'll get her to get it for me

I don't agree with the law either but I guess I can understand it. It's not only about terrorists, its also about protecting US intellectual property for software paid for by the US for use in the development of products by the US. Anyway, point is, not to rain on any parade here, but if your US Citizen girlfriend got it and gave it to you that would consistitute a breach of International Trafficing in Arms (ITAR) regulations. Yeah I know, it's not "Arms" but someone in the US Govt thinks it could be used to create Arms (which it could by another company). In other words your girlfriend would get in a whole heap of trouble if it was found out. In receiving the program she would have to sign papers making that understood. You're also underestimating how hard this would be for a private citizen to get their hands on without a legitimate purpose. "free-of-charge to U.S. entities, citizens, and permanent residents" usually means "US universities and their US students, and US companies and their US employees). You can scream "taxpayer" and probably they have to let you have it, but not easily.

It's more about money than anything else. If a UK company wanted to use this software, it could easily get a Technical Assistance Agreement to get around ITAR if it pays the $ and shows that it wouldn't be competiting with a US Gov't Project in any way (unfair maybe, but remember the US Gov't paid for the software to be developed - they own the rights to it). A private UK citizen could not do the same thing unless (s)he were a millionaire.

I would say life is unfair, but I think one of the best CFD suites out there was developed there in the UK by ARA: Sauna. The rights to this were bought by Qinetiq. From what I've seen, Sauna is more powerful than TetrUSS.

[Christiaan]

I see where you're coming from Colin. I think the premise of the law is that a US passport is a method of defence against terrorism. Well...

having said that I am a Zimbabwean citizen studying in South Africa. Two years ago I couldn't get a mobile phone contract because they said my age and my monthly combined with the fact that I was a foriegner meant that I was probably a drug dealer. Last year when my phone got stolen I went to get it blocked (black listed on all GSM Networks). They couldn't do it because their system only accepts South African ID numbers and could not accept my passport number. So now people know to steal phones from foreigners. Theres a lot of silly little things like that in South Africa, and its actually very frustrating.

[david_martin]

Originally posted by KenC
... I'm waiting for the new IBM G5 processor to be released!

Totally off topic, but the G5 is the (presently vapourware) 32 bit successor to the Motorola PPC 7500 (G4). The processor which is causing a lot of interest at the moment is the 64 bit IBM developed PPC 950, which is speculated to be the next Macintosh desktop processor. Being IBM's first PPC design to include the Motorola/Apple SIMD instructions (Altivec), it will be interesting to see what the float point performance, particularly in double precision, and compiler support will be like. The prospect of 64 bit RISC SMP machines for scientific number crunching at sensible money is tantilizing to say the least.

[KenC]

Originally posted by Christiaan
I am quite curious as to why its only available to American citizens

Actually, it doesn't say that.

It says, " TetrUSS is available free-of-charge to U.S. entities, citizens, and permanent residents" You can be an entity or a permanent resident, and not a citizen and get TetrUSS free-of-charge. Hmmm...makes me wonder, if you are a foreign, non-entity or resident, could you pay and get TetrUSS?

As for my little Mac cluster with the G5, I couldn't remember the name of the new IBM 64bit processor rumored to be in the next Macs, but now that David's jogged my memory, isn't it called the PPC970 and not the PPC950?

[MattPete]

Originally posted by david_martin


Totally off topic, but the G5 is the (presently vapourware) 32 bit successor to the Motorola PPC 7500 (G4). The processor which is causing a lot of interest at the moment is the 64 bit IBM developed PPC 950, which is speculated to be the next Macintosh desktop processor. Being IBM's first PPC design to include the Motorola/Apple SIMD instructions (Altivec), it will be interesting to see what the float point performance, particularly in double precision, and compiler support will be like. The prospect of 64 bit RISC SMP machines for scientific number crunching at sensible money is tantilizing to say the least.

Slight correction, it's the 970, not 950. Either way, it's basically a POWER4 w/ Altivec and the 32 megs of L3 removed. That, and the new (modern) memory architecture that goes with it should make it romp all over the dual G4s...

Finally, a reason to upgrade (assuming that it arrives at WWDC at the end of June)...