I do a lot of work as a Stress Engineer and have spent a great deal of time doing finite element analysis with the 'NISA' finite element analysis suite. When NISA was released with its modeller (DISPLAY III, a unix window working inside DOS and later Windows) in 1990 it was a great advance. Unfortunately it has not progressed one iota since then and by 2004 the software was feeling archaic, clunky and slow. Unbelievably, the native Windows replacement, DISPLAY IV, actually made things slower, so I ended up saying 'Even I can do better than this.'. Having made that rash statement, I developed the EPS LTL Modelling Studio for use at EPS LTL. I have directoral permission to distribute the program, and I have written all the code myself.
Description.
The modeller is a Windows based program designed to create finite element stress models from scratch. Start with a blank screen, finish with a model that can be analysed or used in a rendering package. It generates Finite Element Analysis (FEA) files for 'NISA' and the 'Mystran' FE systems as well as create models from scratch for many 3D rendering packages (such as DAZ's free 'Studio' program).
Features
Start a model geometry from scratch using points, straight lines and flat or warped surfaces.
Mesh points, lines and surfaces.
Automesh points, lines and surfaces to a pre-defined element 'aimed-for' size.
Create Rigid Links.
Rapid binary file read & write for saving work in its native format.
Create and re-run session files.
There is an extensive 'Undo' facility.
Load a Wavefront .obj, COSMOS .geo, Radioss .rad or NISA .nis model. Can import stereo lithography .stl and simple .dxf files.
Copy or move (translate, rotate, mirror or scale) nodes, elements, points, lines and surfaces.
Create Texture Mapping.
Select by numerous criteria (eg element type, material, properties etc.).
Group all entities by layer and groups.
Apply displacement constraints, loads, pressures and nodal pressure loads.
Apply accelerations.
Data entry is by keyboard or (where appropriate) screen snaps
Create and edit all analysis data for multiple load case models.
Create loadcase combination data to easily generate multiple combination load cases.
Generate finite element data for composite laminate models.
Export Wavefront .obj, Display III session files and Display II .ne2 files. Export NISA and MYSTRAN analysis files. Export simple .dxf files of the model geometry.
Area zoom, orbit views etc.
Create elements from nodal picks.
User Guide (2.8Mb), Quick Start Guide (2.1Mb) and Command Reference (5.1Mb) documentation in addition to help files. The documentation amounts to over 300 pages.
Eventually I hope to add:-
Curved lines and curved surfaces [possibly - it isn't as easy as it might be].
Creation and meshing of solids. At the moment solid elements can be imported and created the hard way using nodal picks.
Sweeping of lines and surfaces to create surfaces and solids.
Maintain a linkage between nodes and the surfaces they are meshed on. This will then allow a mesh to be automatically altered if a geometry point is moved.
DISPLAY II .ne2 file import.
All in all I have had some pretty big ambitions for this modeller - I've used it for live jobs and saved weeks of work compared to the existing Display III modeller I have access to. So, it works for me and has justified its existance, and may do so for you too.
Notes:
The program is not finished. There are many 'Help' buttons that have not been linked up yet. I'm sorry, but there is only one of me, and I cannot work miracles. I fear that you'll have to look for the explanation of how to work a window by opening the 247 page Command Reference and tracing the menu commands. Every command the Modeller can cope with is in there, so you should be able to find it!
It's just possible there are bugs.
I admit it, I am a magpie. I've collected ideas for this program from the Display III program, AutoCAD and Poser/Bryce. However every last bit of code in the program comes from me. Just thought I'd let you know! For the terminally curious, the source code is included in the installation package. All told, the Modelling Studio has over 80000 lines of code. I have tried it with huge models (1 million elements) and it does struggle a little for display speed, but for a more reasonable 5000 elements, it'll walk it.
The Modelling Studio comes with other tools built in - such as Plate Development, a Text Editor, Bolt Group Analysis using rigid body theory, Model Verification checks, interface loads extraction from a NISA output file, and Translators to/from NISA to Wavefront obj, Stereo Lithography STL and DXF formats. These close severe holes that are present in the NISA suite connectivity to other file formats.
Download the Installshield Installation package here:
Modeller Installation, zipped (13.9Mb)
The installation works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP provided you have administrator rights. I have not tried it on Vista at all. To see a list of files installed look here (8kb). Please note, this version is the 2015 version of the program and is out of date.
The installation above does NOT install on Windows 7 or more recently, as the Installer (Installshield Express) is an old, 16 bit program which Win7 onwards refuses to get on with. So, for Win 7 and above, download the zip file below. This file contains all the necessary files and it can all be extracted into a single directory and work in a fully functional manner in whatever directory you extract the files to. The only things missing will be start menu icons, registry entries and an uninstaller.
Modeller For Windows 7 and above, zipped (10.03Mb)
Update History
17 Feb 2022: Big update of the Windows 7 onwards zipped version of the program. I have updated the program for the first time. There are a number of extra functions that I have worked on over the years since the last upload file in 2015. They are mostly aimed at making modelling for rendering easier. I have re-compiled the program with the Embarcadero C++ Builder 10, whereas I was using C++ Builder 4 Pro. This has had little effect on anything other than compiled .exe size (grown a lot) and a marginal increase in speed of operation, but it gives me more library functions to utilise later. The main functions I have added are FE Model| Element| Modify| Thicken, FE Model| Element| Modify| Back Face Culling and FE Model| Element| Modify| De-Triangulate. The 'Thicken' function has to be used with care as the elements can turn inside out if the thickness is too great, and the 'De-Triangulate' function has to be used before texture mapping, or delete the mapping afterwards. All new functions are documented in the command reference. Experience has shown that the STL-OBJ translator & open the OBJ model is quicker and more efficient than opening an stl file in the modeller. Unfortunately with Win7 onwards, the .hlp files for every other tool in the program are not possible to read any more. The program .exe name is now 'ModellerProgram'.
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