Advanced multimedia interfaces for use in engineering and educational software

J. Lindemann, O. Dahlblom and G. Sandberg

Outline

• General discussion of analysis software for civil engineers, designers and archictects

• A tool for “sketching” structures and forces.

• The “Virtual Workbench” for 3D beam analysis

Analysis software for designers and architects

• Easy to find analysis software for engineers

• Hard to find analysis software for designers or architects– Different requirements– Different uses and application

Engineering software

Engineering software

Analysis software for designers and architects

• Software must be adapted to a different work process

• Analysis must be easy to use

• Fast, adapted to an iterative process.

• Visualisation of results important

The design process

The design process

Problem Investigation Solution Evaluation

Redesign

Final solution

Painting programs

Painting programs

• Direct manipulation• Easy to use• Often used by designers/architects• Can this be applied to an analysis tool for

designers and architects?

ForcePAD

• 2D finite element analysis program

• Structure is painted• Standard paint tools,

brush, lines, geometric primitives and fill

• Visualisation of principal stresses and deformation

Example of use…

Educational use at The School of Design Sciences

First ForcePAD assignment

• Illustrate the shear stresses

Second ForcePAD assignment

• Bicycle design

Results

• Standard bicycle designs

Results

• Modified bicycle designs

Results

• New bicycle design

Educational use atStructural Mechanics

• Used in the undergraduate course in structural mechanics

Assignment 1 – Trusses

Assignment 1 - Results

Assigment 2 – Bar of different materials

Assignment 2 - Results

Assignment 3 – Concrete test sample

Assignment 3 - Results

Assignment 4 – Piece of wood

Assignment 4 - Results

Assignment 5 - Beams

Assignment 5 - Results

Creating a “virtual workshop”

• Architects often use models to evaluate their designs

• Enables them to get a better ”feel” of the designs• How can this ”workshop” be translated into

software?

New hardware possibilities

• Cheap 3d/2d acceleration– Real-time lighted and shaded models

– Transparency (Blending)

– Fast 2d operations

• Low cost computational resources– Complex analysis possible on most workstations

– Sometimes even in real-time

What can we learn from games?

• Direct interfaces

• Not bound by existing paradigms

• Visually appealing

• Often easy to use

User interface examples

Transparency

Heads up display

Direct manipulation

Dynamic

ObjectiveFrame

• 3D beam analysis

• Direct manipulation interface

• ”Feedback mode” for visualising deflection in real-time.

• Visualisation of section forces and deformation

Example of use…

Educational use at The School of Architecture at Chalmers

University of Technology

• The usability of ObjectiveFrame was tested in the course High Structures --- A Creative Investigation

Stiffening of structures

• The assignment was to apply stiffening methods to high structures

• A one-hour lecture was given to introduce different methods of stiffening high structures

• The students were given two models– A simple structure for studying the effects of

stiffening a floor

– A more complete structure for evaluating different methods of stiffening.

The models

The students

The results

Conclusions

• It is difficult to create good educational software• Paradigms can be effectively combined to create

new analysis tools• New hardware enables new ideas• ForcePAD and ObjectiveFrame have succesfully

used in the education

More information

• ForcePAD and ObjectiveFrame can be found athttp://www.byggmek.lth.se under Resources