You might work with computational fluid dynamics software and yet not recognize its role on the silver screen.

"It's an exhaustive task to prescribe the motion of every degree of freedom in a piece of clothing or a crashing wave," said Ron Fedkiw, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif.

He was speaking about computations used to make solids and fluids more realistic in computer-generated special effects for feature films. Fedkiw addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science during its annual meeting held in San Francisco in February.

"Since these motions are governed by physical processes, it can be difficult to make these phenomena appear natural," he told the group. "Thus, physically based simulation has become quite popular in the special effects industry. The same class of tools useful for computational fluid dynamics is also useful for sinking a ship on the big screen."

CFD at the movies: Davy Jones's beard of tentacles was created using the same kinds of codes that are used to understand real-world processes. The character is shown here in a promotional still for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

This year, the special effects Oscar winner, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and a runner-up, Poseidon, both made heavy use of numerical simulation, Fedkiw said. Effects for both films were done by Industrial Light & Magic of San Rafael, Calif., which made its name in connection with Star Wars. Fedkiw has been a consultant to ILM for six years.

Most recently, one of Fedkiw's creations—a physics-based modeling, or PhysBAM, core math engine—helped to create realistic water in Poseidon and Davy Jones's tentacles in Dead Man's Chest.

"The simulation of gases, liquids, and combustion for scientific reasons quickly translates into the ability to make animations of smoke, water, and fire," Fedkiw said. "Similar statements hold for soft biological tissues, muscles, fractures, and other solid material problems. Once the scientific numerical simulations are worked out, interesting animations can be made shortly thereafter."

Fedkiw also designs new algorithms for other applications, including CFD solid mechanics, computer graphics, computer vision, and computational biomechanics. The algorithms may rotate objects, simulate textures, generate reflections, or mimic collisions. Or they may mathematically stitch together slices of a falling water drop, rising smoke wisp, or flickering flame to weave realism into computer-graphics images.

An online service for posting RFQs has received a new infusion of cash, which it plans to spend on expansion. MFG.com Inc., which operates an Internet site where potential buyers of parts and services can request quotes from prospective suppliers, has received funding from a new source, European Founders Fund of Munich, Germany, and an increased investment from one of its stakeholders, Bezos Expeditions LLC.

MFG.com is privately held and did not disclose the size of the investments or how much equity each partner holds. The company did say that Bezos Expeditions was the lead investor in the latest round of funding.

According to Mitch Free, the firm's chief executive officer, MFG.com will use the money to continue its international expansion and to develop new online services. The company, which Free founded in 2000, has offices in Europe and a wholly owned unit in China. It has also purchased another manufacturers' networking site, SourcingParts.com, which is based in Geneva.

On its Web site at www.mfgquote. com, MFG.com says it has more than 110,000 members and that more than $4.76 billion of direct materials have been ordered through its service.

ASME's Codes and Standards sector has taken the first step in developing a standard for verifying and validating engineering computer models. Guide for Verification and Validation in Computational Solid Mechanics was published a few months ago. The next step is to identify and define best practices. Completion of that step will enable the development of a formal standard in the future.

The document points out that computational solid mechanics is increasingly important in the development and testing of engineered systems from cars to aircraft and weapons. At the same time, "the state of the art of V&V [that is, verification and validation] does not currently lend itself to writing a step-by-step performance code/standard."

The Guide outlines procedures for developing methods to verify engineering software and validate the results from models by comparing the results from simulations with experiments. The publication's purpose is to give those involved in computational solid and structural mechanics "a common language, a conceptual framework, and general guidance for implementing the processes of computational V&V."

As part of the contribution to common language, the Guide defines "verification," for instance, as "the process of determining that a computational model accurately represents the underlying mathematical model and its solution. "Validation" is "the process of determining the degree to which a model is an accurate representation of the real world from the perspective of the intended uses of the model."

According to the document, verification and validation, taken together, "are the processes by which evidence is generated, and credibility is established, that computer models have adequate accuracy and fidelity for their intended use."

The publication also includes figures illustrating the verification and validation processes, and discussions of ideas to be considered in establishing a verification and validation program.

The publication, which contains just under 30 pages, is available from the Society, and designated as ASME V&V 10-2006.

The Guide was developed by Performance Test Code Committee 60. Like all Codes and Standards committees, the membership of PTC 60 includes a balance of representatives from industry, government, and academia.

The ASME initiative builds on previous verification and validation work, including a guide for CFD practices, published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Click here to purchase ASME V&V 10-2006, or call 800-THE-ASME. Contact Ryan Crane at craner@asme.org with additional questions related to the PTC 60 committee activities.

In a bid to step up competitiveness in its manufacture of dies, a Japanese company has initiated a project to machine hard materials directly, thereby eliminating the use of electrodes and hand polishing.

Riken Forge of Maebashi, Japan, makes hot forgings for the automotive, agricultural, and construction industries. The company had been creating toolpaths manually, but when it undertook the new project, it wanted to move to a CAM system in order to save time.

When a manufacturer in Japan initiated a project to machine hard materials, it also brought in a CAM system that could read its CAD files, thereby speeding up manufacture.

So when the company evaluated new CAM systems, compatibility with its CAD software was a significant consideration, according to Hiroki Takama of the company's production engineering department. The CAD system used a format called JAMA-IS and the company had a hard time finding a CAM system that could open those files.

It eventually decided to go with the WorkNC system from Sescoi of Mâcon Cedex, France, the only system Takama and his crew looked at that was able to work with the CAD file format.

Now, die sets can be manufactured in as little as one-quarter of the previous time, he said.

"It used to take two days to create NC data for one crankshaft and we often received complaints from the shop floor. Now it only takes half a day," Takama said.

Tacton Systems of Stockholm, a maker of product configuration software, has launched TactonWorks for SolidWorks, which allows manufacturers to configure assemblies and drawings to meet customer requirements.

UGS Corp. of Plano, Texas, has released Teamcenter for Portfolio Management, which provides portfolio planning and management tools to manufacturers for use in optimizing their mix of projects for business growth.

Beasy Software of Billerica, Mass., has released an upgrade to its Fracture Simulation Software, which predicts fracture mechanics data for cracks and simulates growth of cracks.

VX Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., has upgraded its CAD and CAM software to VX version 12.

Ashlar-Vellum of Austin, Texas, now offers training by podcast for customers who use the company's 3-D solid and surface modeling software.

Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala., has released SmartPlant Enterprise 2007 to help manage the plant lifecycle.

Crane Co. of Milpitas, Calif., has upgraded its Flow of Fluids software to Flow of Fluids Premium version 2007. It simulates the operation of small piping systems.

VirtualGrid of Seattle has released VRMesh version 3.5, a freeform 3-D mesh modeler to create and process arbitrary triangle mesh.

VariCAD of Liberec, Czech Republic, has released VariCAD 2007 1.07, which Windows Vista enabled. The 2-D and 3-D CAD system can be run on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Linux.

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