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14/08/2003
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Britain is still very heavily involved in the development of ever more sophisticated computer based tools to help the engineer. Tom Shelley reports
When it comes to writing innovative software to help the engineer, the UK is second to none, even if successful ventures often end up in American ownership.
A typical example is Parasolid, the crucial modelling kernel in most high-end CAD systems. Developed by Shape Data, it came out of research by Ian Baird, a graduate student at Cambridge, and although now owned by EDS Unigraphics, still has a Cambridge office.
More than a few UK software innovators have got careers off the ground by crossing the Atlantic and working there. Another Cambridge graduate, Dr David Hibbitt, began his career in engineering with Associated Electrical Industries in Manchester, working on the design of large steam turbines for electrical power generation. In 1972, he completed a PhD thesis at Brown University. The thesis involved computational mechanics based on finite elements. On graduating, Hibbitt and his advisor commercialised the software they had developed as the MARC code for FEA. MARC Analysis Research Corporation hired Hibbitt and made the software available. Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen was incorporated on February 1, 1978. The fledgling company operated initially from Hibbitt's house. The company is now known as Abaqus with a host of blue chip automotive customers engaged in engine and power train design.
Some companies manage to work closely with large American corporations without becoming absorbed. SEOS was founded in 1984 by Owen Wynn and Stephen Elmer, as Specialised Electro Optical Services Ltd. Headquartered at Burgess Hill in Sussex, SEOS pioneered the first Silicon Graphics (SGI) Reality Centre at Reading in 1994. SEOS renamed itself SEOS Displays in 1988 but is still very British, and has won two Queen's Awards. On June 9th 2003, the company announced that it had received an order from SGI Federal to provide the US AFRL/VACD (the Control Simulation and Assessment branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory Air Vehicles Directorate) with two Infinity Cube systems, the latest addition to the company's range of collimated displays.
The Infinity Cube is a modular configuration of Infinity Windows, which provide a "near seamless" multi-channel, collimated "dome" display in a compact space. In addition to extremely large fields of view, the Infinity Cube allows realistic depth perception and the use of standard unmodified Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS) and aircraft HUD's.
Also still UK owned and run at the present time is Digipac, subject of our August 2002 cover story. Solving the problem of studying the packing or flow behaviour of real world shaped particles, it is now called Structure Vision. Directors Dr Xiaodong Jia and Professor Richard Williams have commissioned a market research study which indicated markets in the food, packaging, pharmaceutical and chemical engineering sectors. It can be used to predict product filling (order of filling, premixing), product settlement (vibration and shaking) and the simulation of cooking and flow. Further details will be available soon on a web site, but in the mean time, interested parties should get in touch with Dr Jia by email.
Pointers
* UK software innovators contribute much to functionality of CAD, even though many such companies appear at first sight to be 100% American
* Participation may be as employees, subsidiaries or proprietors of US companies, or as long term collaborating partners
* New and completely independent UK CAD companies with revolutionary concepts continue to emerge from time to time
SEOS
Structure Vision
Dr Xiaodong Jia
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Author
Tom Shelley
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