Definition of terms relating to CEETRON Products

It should be noted that the terms (and acronyms) below are defined in a CEETRON setting, and hence may deviate from what is generally utilized in the engineering community. In real life, terms are not only abused by marketing, but also by the engineers themselves, so defining the terms in a CEETRON setting makes the interpretation of the CEETRON web-pages easier.

Analysis / Simulation

In computer aided engineering - CAE - the terms "Analysis" and "Simulation" are used interchangingly. In the context of CEETRON's web pages, analysis and simulation means "finding the value of physical quantities by means of computer software"; CEETRON develops software for the visualization of such quantities (e.g. the visualization of stresses, strains, temperatures, velocities).

Application Programming Interface ("API")

An application programming interface is a software program (or collection of software programs) to enable interaction with other software. The interface is commonly an interface between one (very specialized) software system and an application program, but may as well be an interface between parts of a larger software system (a good example hereto would be the parametric language in ANSYS . The GLView 3D Visualization API is a set of routines that typically is utilized to make an application for the display of numerical results from a Finite Element Program, a Boundary Element program, or a program based on Finite Volumes; e.g. a structural analysis program or a Navier Stokes Solver for Computational Fluid Dynamics - CFD. However, it must be emphasized that the GLview 3D Visualization API is quite general and ideally suited to establish visual interfaces to in-house software.

Boundary Element Method (BEM)

The Boundary Element Method is a numerical technique for the solution of engineering or scientific problems. The boundary element method is based on the discretisation of an integral equation (the Finite Element Method is based on partial differential equation). In applying the boundary element method, only a mesh of the surfaces is required, making it easier to use and often significantly more efficient than competing methods such as the FEM. That the BEM is based on surface integrals for the solution for the domain adjacent to the surface (mesh) is no problem for Ceetron's visualization tools; the results will be mapped onto a dummy grid for visualization.

Collaborative Engineering

Collaborative Engineering is a systematic approach to integrated, concurrent development and design of products and processes related to the entire product cycle, including manufacturing, product service and support by engineering teams at physically dispersed locations. The teams may come from one or more organizations.
Ceetron's free viewers and plug-ins greatly helps engineering groups collaborate by giving anybody having a PC the ability to view simulation results without having to pay for a license fee.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Generally, CFD is viewed as the solution of the full Navier-Stokes Equations for fluid dynamics. However; simplified methods for solving a subset of the Navier-stokes Equations (e.g. for inviscid and irrotational flow) exist and play important roles in various industries.

Computer Aided Design ("CAD")

Systems for Computer Aided Design (better Computer Aided Drafting) first were utilized by the aerospace industries to accommodate the documentation requirements for modern airplanes. CAD systems are basically handling geometry and the documentation of such.

Computer Aided Engineering ("CAE")

Computer-aided engineering (often referred to as CAE) is the use of information technology to support engineers in tasks such as analysis, simulation, design, manufacture, planning, diagnosis, and repair. Increasingly more complex engineering tasks are being solved by CAE. This is particularly true for simulation. Design engineers use a variety of CAE tools, including large, general-purpose commercial programs and many specialized programs written in-house or elsewhere in the industry. Solution of a single engineering problem frequently requires the application of several CAE tools. Communication of data between these software tools presents a challenge for most applications. Data are usually passed through proprietary neutral file formats, data interchange standards, or a system database. For the transfer of simulation results, the CEETRON "VTF"-format is established as a very efficient and robust format for the transfer of result data from simulation software and post-processing systems.

Computer Aided Manufacturing ("CAM")

By CAM, one basically understand the utilization of computers for the generation of numerical control instructions for manufacturing.

Finite Element Analysis ("FEA")

Finite Element Analysis (often confused with the Finite Element Method) is the utilization of FEM-based software for the solution of Engineering Problems. Initially, FEA was synonymous with Structural Analysis, i.e. the analysis of structures like bridges, ships, etc. Today FEA generally means the utilization of FEM-based software in a CAE context. Typically, FEA yields very large amounts of data; today we may see result files in the terrabyte range. The only viable way to get an overview of this data is by visualization, the main business of CEETRON is to provide easy to use tools for such visualization.

Plug-in

Plug-ins is software that may be installed into an existing application in order to enhance its functionality. A well known example to a plug-in would be a media player that can be installed in most web browsers. The GLview 3D Plugin can be embedded into MS Word and MS PowerPoint presentations and web pages (presently Internet Explorer) and enables full 3D interactivity and high performance graphics.

Post-processing

Post-processing is the treatment of the data obtained from a numerical simulation. The method utilized may be Finite Element Analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Boundary Elements, or other numerical methods utilized for engineering simulations. Post-processing is treatment of any data available after the simulation has come to an end (including checking the input data as echoed in the simulation software output). Visualization is playing an increasingly important role in numerical simulation, be it by finite element analysis or by other numerical methods.

Reporting

Reporting from numerical simulations may be verbal, but that is the exception to the rule. We view reporting as "a formal presentation of the outcome of an engineering study by numerical tools whereby emphasis is placed on the numerical results as such and on the engineering aspects of the subject and process simulated". Reporting may be according to company-internal standards, to standards and codes, and to customer-specified standards.

Software Development Kit ("SDK")

A SDK is a set of development tools for the creation of application packages / application systems. In this context, the GLview 3D Visualization API may as well be considered a SDK (Blue Ridge Numeric's GUI has been developed utilizing CEETRON's API/SDK; http://www.brni.com). CEETRON's API/SDK is available for MS Windows and LINUX.

The Finite Element Method ("FEM")

The finite element method (sometimes referred to as finite element analysis (FEA)) is - strictly speaking - a numerical technique for finding approximate solutions to partial differential equations (PDE). The FEM and the tools based on the method play an ever increasing role in product development and verification. It is therefore extremely important to have efficient, verified, and easy to use visualization tools to interface FEM-based tools to help the engineer verifying and reporting the results produced by such tools. CEETRON delivers visualization tools for interpreting results from tools based on the FEM and other numerical tools.

ViewTech File format ("VTF")

The VTF format (copyright CEETRON) is a highly efficient format for handling extremely large amounts of data through CEETRON's Products. Another big advantage of the VTF format is that it makes it easy to to introduce numerical data from any source and any form to an existing Finite Element or CFD model. The format is very well documented, see
http://www.ceetron.com/uploads/dokumenter/VTF/VTFx_Reference_Guide.pdf,
http://www.ceetron.com/uploads/dokumenter/VTF/VTF_GLview7_Reference_Guide.pdf, and
http://www.ceetron.com/uploads/dokumenter/VTF/VTF_GLview7_Binary_format.pdf.

There are companies that have their in-house programs write information in the VTF-formats for visualization in CEETRON's viewers.