PDEease

Robert Nelson
A commercial System
Currently only available in 2D
Written in PASCAL

PDEase2 -- I

* Only iterative solvers as aimed at PC's
* Accepts a script from user specifying problem and desired output
* Descriptor files define TITLE, EQUATIONS etc
* Simple language to specify geometry
* Generates adaptive irregular finite element meshes

PDEase2 -- II

* Doing groundwater simulations for Livermore
* Has ascii text way of specifying equations using curl dt del2 etc.
* can solve eigenvalue problems
* Cost $600 for a PC
* Company is SPDE 510-862-0644 founded in 1991
* Many 2 man years work and 40,000 lines in PDEase2

PDEase2 -- III

* Uses linked lists as datastructures
* Switching to C as more portable than Pascal
* current PC's are so powerful, could reconsider emphasis on iterative solvers
* Note have own Conjuagate Gradient, Lanczos solvers(non symmetric) internally written in Pascal for linked list

Questions from Audience - I

* Skjellum mentions CMU NSF center which develope chemical engineering PSE's with object oriented design with applicative language

* Industry very reluctant to change anything -- including changing to adaptive meshes
* Nelson wrote all of it.Of course built on existing software

Questions from Audience - II

* What is marketplace? Just through it out!
* Macsyma Inc handles marketing and first level support
* Not clear if anybody is making money from PDE PSE's
* SPDC not making money
* Set price low to create market!
* There is $100 student version and a swedish professor has written a physics textbook to go with it

Questions from Audience -- III

* Claim need to focus on specific market segments e.g. add a chemical engineering wrapper

- General PDE solver has no market!
- Can one compete with special purpose packages from particular field which ought to be more efficient and have precise software n

Questions from Audience -- IV

* Why don't we set up a Web Site which solves PDE's on demand!Nelson is interested
* Note can build a nice educational resource on the web based on swedish textbook comined with PDEase!