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 fronted
*	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 needed
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!