lipman@dtrc.dt.navy.mil (Robert Lipman) (11/28/90)
I've got $150,000 to spend on a computer graphics visualization system. Currently, we have about 25 Apollo's, anything from 460's to 4500-DVS's and a 590-T. Our visualization needs are in the areas of finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics. Most of our analyses are not straight-forward. Most of the finite element analysis results are further processed to get other results and the CFD codes are all home grown. For finite element analyses and postprocessing we use NASTRAN, ABAQUS, FOTO, PATRAN, SUPERTAB. For CFD visualization we use PLOT3D and some home grown software. A DN10000VS would fit in very well and satisfy our current needs, but what about the future and products from other vendors. The future for upgrades, software from HP/Apollo, and 3rd party visualization software for the 10000 does not look promising. Other vendors have good looking hardware and software (SGI, IBM, SUN). However, buying non-Apollo means going to a heterogeneous network, presenting many problems. We do not really have funding to integrate something else into the network. Only money for hardware. So what would you buy with $150,000? Stay with Apollo. Buy a VGX system from SGI, an IBM RS/6000? Keep in mind our primary purpose is visualization and not number crunching but for $150,000 we'll get alot of number crunching too. We also do not want to spend a lot of time integrating another vendor's product to our network,andalearning sys admin stuff for another machine. Third party visualization software is a plus. How would you configure your dream system? Thanks in advance, e-mail responses please, Bob Lipman David Taylor Research Center Computational Mechanics Division Bethesda, MD