If you have been holding off on upgrading FEMAP, version 2606 gives you several good reasons to update. This release completes the new graphics architecture and delivers a major speedup in post-processing. Both changes help you get more done in less time.
Explore this blog, based on our Boost Your Productivity: Explore the New Tools in Simcenter FEMAP & Simcenter Nastran webinar, with the former Director of FEMAP Software Development, Mark Sherman.
Unified Graphics Architecture – FEMAP 2606
Over the last few releases, FEMAP has been moving to a new graphics architecture. OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) has changed over the years, and FEMAP has kept pace by building on its latest version. The new graphics system was also written from the bottom up to be easier to maintain.
In FEMAP 2606, the final entities were added to the new architecture. This includes major entities like shell elements and connectors, along with connection regions and the remaining entity types. With those in place, the unified graphics architecture is complete, and it is now the way to go for performance.
FEMAP graphics will soon be the only graphics option. Upgrading to 2606 puts you on the faster, more maintainable system now.
Key takeaways:
- This release implements geometry in Unified Architecture:
- Shell elements
- Connection regions
- Connectors
- Support for connection regions completes the project to address all major graphics bottlenecks
Faster results processing
The faster results processing gains come from new memory management under the hood. You turn the option on in FEMAP, and it is expected to be on by default. From there, enveloping and related operations simply run faster.
This matters because nearly every FEMAP user post-processes results. Many rely on enveloping to find the highest stresses in a model, and that work now takes less time.
Additionally, this improvement reaches custom code as well, since post-processing in FEMAP runs through a results object that is also available through the API.
If you have written API programs to handle post-processing, they will benefit too. Any enveloping your API-managed code performs will run faster without extra work on your part.
Key takeaways:
Faster results processing for large models:
- New OS-managed results cache option on Results tab of File -> Preferences introduced dramatic performance improvements for large models
- Smarter memory management dramatically reduces processing time for large datasets
- Optimized access patterns eliminate unnecessary I/O overhead during post-processing
- Better scalability for models that generate exceedingly high result volume
- Results enveloping – up to 12x faster for imported linear static results
- Composites per-ply output – significant speed increase for high-volume results sets
- General results access – improved throughput and reduced wait times across the board
Bigger models see bigger gains
Benchmark results show speedups whether you import results and save them fully in the FEMAP database or keep them outside and attached. Either way, processing is faster.
The benefit also grows with model size. That is typical with big data, where a better algorithm pays off more as models get larger. For FEMAP users working with large models, this is especially good news.
Ready to see what FEMAP 2606 can do for your models? Learn more about how Applied CAx can help.