Scan&Solve - twenty years in the making

That is right -- this is how long it took to transform a simple idea of in-situ analysis into a working commercial product. The fundamental principle is straightforward: once you have a geometric representation of a shape, you know everything there is to know about it, and should be able to compute whatever is needed directly from this native representation, without converting into something called "mesh". Why would anybody want to deal with repair, simplification, defeaturing, bad meshes, and inaccuracies ... that is if the heuristic meshing procedure even terminates. Of course, working with native representations also means that your results are only as good as your representation. Fortunately, Rhino users have a great representation of solids! and now Scan&Solve shows that it is indeed good enough to compute not only geometric but also all physical properties of the represented shapes.

So what does Scan&Solve do? This current version performs the most common type of structural test on the shape. Specify restraints and loads on the faces in Rhino, hit the go button, and see the predicted strength or weakness of your shape. What happens under the hood? It is a two-stage procedure, where the native geometry is scanned into a form that is suitable for representing physical properties of the shape, followed by a solve step which is more or less the same as finite element analysis method. Is it really meshless? There is really no such thing as meshless. However, it is definitely meshfree -- in the sense that the users should never see or deal with the mesh. Those who are mathematically inclined can go to www.meshfree.com and read the white paper paper with detailed equations. But what is important for most of us is that the procedure is theoretically sound and experimentally verified, and can be used for any and all types of physical analysis and simulation tasks. In other words, with Scan&Solve, geometry and physics can be one.

No other product comes even close to what Scan&Solve offers in terms of simplicity of use and ability to handle complex solid geometry. It is so different and so simple that anybody can use it. The big question is: will you use it? And what can we change and improve it to make it more useful for you? This is what this network is all about. So come along for the ride and enjoy.