Wow this is actually pretty big news. LSTC (creator of LS-Dyna) has been bought by ANSYS. It’ll be interesting if this has any affect on LS-Dyna users.
I just joined the group and thought this would be a good place to get started 🙂
I think it is reasonable to expect: a) overall prices to go up over time, b) WorkBench integration to strengthen (I suppose good news for ANSYS users), and c) a bit of cloud around LS-PrePost (could go either way - either with a stronger CAD engine and integration with Python on both the pre and post-processing front). It is also reasonable to expect long term developments (CESE comes to mind) to come under scrutiny.
Yeah, I agree with your points (with the little knowledge that I have of Ansys Workbench at least). The funny thing with Pre-Post, is that it has some complex and useful functions/capabilities that other paid pre/post processors do not have or are more difficult to use. Extracting nodes from certain time points of a simulation and projecting nodes to a mesh surface come to mind here. It's also way more intuitive to navigate the Keyword section than say something like Primer.
So all that to say, it has a lot of upside if they could just fix the bugs!
I agree. I find it more powerful than some of the GUIs with other fancier tools. Even though it has a limited CAD engine, its list of CAD features puts some of the leading commercial tools to shame. Block mesher is one of the most powerful hex meshers there is (grew out of INGRID at Lawrence Livermore) but it is a wall to climb for most users and the lack of documentation makes it essentially useless. The downsides, as you note, in addition to a lack of documentation, the buggy nature of the features, lack of strong API for pre-processing, etc.
Block mesher is one of the most powerful hex meshers there is (grew out of INGRID at Lawrence Livermore)
Now this is something I’d be interested in looking into. Didn’t know hex meshing was possible in Pre-Post.
I did a shallow dive into the CAD tools when I was cleaning up the bottle openers for a video and it was pretty difficult to figure out on my own. Eventually got it worked out after a few temper tantrums on my end and it seemed to have quite a selection of functions.
I may have oversold the block mesher when I said it "is one of the most powerful hex meshers there is" 🙂 It is powerful but it is hard and non-intuitive to use. TrueGrid is a commercial (and very cheap!) tool for hex meshing that is also based off of INGRID. I think TrueGrid (XYZ Scientific) offers training for their tool whose user interface is from the 80s 🙂
There is a YouTube channel in which someone walks through the steps of hex meshing tricky geometries.
By the way, I appreciate your videos on your YouTube channel. Hope this social network platform, the channel, etc. is bringing in revenue so you can continue to do this for the long haul and grow!
@icebreakersours I was actually going to ask if it’s anything like truegrid 😂 powerful but essentially useless is so true though. I’ll take a look into that video on the meshing. And thanks for the support! I appreciate the kind words 👍