3rd Party render servers to calculate and render FEM projects for FreeCAD

[Kunda1]

In a recent thread Cross section river profiles @thschrader shares his work of using CFD WB and mentions also the amount of time it takes to render certain FEA analyses on his laptop. I wonder if there is a way we can signal to possible educational institutions/3rd party donors that would allow for FC users to render FEM projects on more powerful server farms? It's just a thought. Any thoughts?

[Kunda1]

Good idea. My proposal:
http://defsec.csir.co.za/aeronautical-s ... teractions
or
http://www.eskom.co.za/Pages/Landing.aspx
(they use FC )

[Kunda1]

Some ideas:
--------------
Justifications:

• Help improve FC FEM Workbench through execution of large computational intensive projects (discover bugs the would show up later in the rendering process of a large operation)
• Help to improve upstream solvers by submitting bugs if they are encountered during the simulation (encountered via FEM WB)
• Promote integration of scripts/automation to make rendering operations more seamless in FC (less steps involved)
• Promote the widespread adaptation of FEM in to the rest of FreeCAD (for example Arch WB, Optics, etc..etc...)
• Promote the ease of access to FEA methodology through FreeCAD and the open source ecosystem (ability to use different solvers)

[TT-RS]

I think it will be easy to use such solutions like Amazon or Google Cloud Platform for this tasks, as all software involved is free / open source However I do not think that you find anything for free!

There are already such solutions based on FOSS (and of course commercial) software for FEM and CFD purposes, some of them are discussed on cfd-online.com from time to time.

Sending data to server or cloud for computation is good idea, but the other idea is to make distributed computation across your home or office network (this is harder to achieve, but might also interest many users. It would be easier with OpenFOAM and problematic or even impossible with CalculiX). This option is much better for rendering (visualizations), as it easy easy to break scene into parts, not as easy for scientific computations (all CAE related).

[saso]

I think there will be easy to use such solutions like Amazon or Google Cloud Platform for this tasks...

+1

[Kunda1]

I think there will be easy to use such solutions like Amazon or Google Cloud Platform for this tasks...

Good point. Though the point there would be a need for sponsorship.

[bernd]

http://feacluster.com/

[Kunda1]

http://feacluster.com/

Plan 3 - Freemium:

This is the self-serve model where you set up and maintain your own compute cluster by using the documentation available here. You need to have at least an intermediate skill level in software development and high performance clusters. We will provide support only where the documentation is not clear. In the open-source spirit, you enhance the documentation so it can benefit others as well.

Cost: Free

The following documents are for those interested in contributing to the development of their own compute clusters. I can provide minimal support as you are expected to have an intermediate level of software development skills and HPC skills to follow along. Ideally you will be able to enhance them and send your contributions to me to update them.

[TT-RS]

The other option: You can buy cluster / good workstations yourself and provide such services to FreeCAD users. All money earned could supply development of FreeCAD. You don't need big DevOps skills to do so, the biggest cost is hardware here. Maybe not from today, but in future I think it is worth considering... Blender Organization makes free open source software and earns from some services and goods (tutorials, resources). Some 3rd party companies also provide services like https://blendercluster.com/

[TT-RS]

Have a look at Anaconda Cloud - https://anaconda.org/freecad/calculix - FC and Calculix are mentioned here, but to be honest I dont know how it works...Maybe someone know here in forum?