Results you can see help you understand problems much better than results returned as a list of numbers.

Take the case of engineers at a consulting company that helps vehicle makers improve the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles. The engineers rely on specialized software to graphically depict the drag around trucks.

Consultants at Solus Solutions and Technologies LLC use computational fluid dynamics software coupled with a post-processing, plotting, and graphing application to evaluate several drag-reduction devices installed on trucks to increase fuel efficiency, said Craig Hunter, vice president of CFD and aerodynamics at the company in Virginia Beach, Va.

Consultants at Solus use CFD to analyze drag around large trucks. Then, they turn to post-processing software to make analysis results into meaningful pictures.

He and his team are testing three drag-reduction devices. One is a cross-flow vortex trap that looks like a series of vertical boards mounted on the front face of the trailer. It controls airflow that might get trapped in the gap between the truck and the trailer. Another consists of vortex stakes installed on the side, back, and top of the trailer to energize the big wake of air behind the trailer. The third is an undercarriage device that looks somewhat like a mud flap and controls flow behind the trailer.

For tests, Hunter ran simulated airflow around these devices with a NASA-designed CFD program called TetrUSS. He combined that with the post-processing application Tecplot from Tecplot Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., to get results graphically.

Hunter said he likes the CFD model to be as realistic
as possible so his clients can visualize and understand results themselves.

"If the trucking industry doesn't buy into it, then they won't really believe the results even if they are good results," Hunter said.

With CFD, his team evaluated the effectiveness of each device when used alone and in combination. Results are pending, Hunter said.

What if your computer could see you? Might you take a little more time choosing your working attire?

Electronics and computing engineers at the University of Ulster in Ireland have teamed up with neuroscientists, physicists, and biologists from across Europe to find ways to incorporate two of the five human senses into computers.

The team wants to replicate in silicon the brain's ability to get data from touch and sight.

The brain can combine information from different senses for a complete representation of an object. For example, you can identify a kiwi fruit by sight, but you need to pick up the fruit to tell whether or not it's ripe.

Maybe computers equipped with a sense of touch could do the same thing.

This information, for example, could give designers a more complete understanding of their digital parts. They could feel the part as well as see it in three dimensions.

The team plans to study sensory fusion in biological systems and hopes to translate that knowledge into computers, said Martin McGinnity, a professor of intelligent systems engineering at the university.

"The ultimate aim is to create machines that can capture information through sensory perception, process it in a way similar to the brain, and then act intelligently on that information," McGinnity said.

The research will also have practical application in a wide range of areas, including robotics and industrial automation, where systems could learn about their environment and perform accordingly, he added.

The group has created a demonstration system made of hardware and software that merge vision and touch—albeit at a very basic level compared to that of living forms, McGinnity said.

"We would hope that in the future we could create models that are more faithful to biology," he added. "Once we can get the models right, we may be able to implement better, more realistic systems."

Other partners in the project include researchers from Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Your computer isn't a mind reader. It can't tell if you're happy or angry. But is that a good or a bad thing?

Computers that sense their users' emotions could be of real value, according to European researchers who are working on techniques that could allow the digital servant to respond to the mood of its human master.

Yes, computer users love and cherish their machines, but they often maltreat them in fits of anger. The kicks and blows of frustrated users damage the computer, which is either personal property or workplace property.

If only for this reason, it would be good for computers to assess their users' emotions correctly and respond accordingly, according to scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Rostock, Germany.

But there are more pertinent reasons why the box on your desk might want to know what you're feeling.

Research into human-computer interaction becomes seriously relevant for developing software and hardware, said Christian Peter, an engineer at the Department for Human-Centered Interaction Technologies at the Institute. Vehicle designers, for example, have known that drivers and pilots make fewer errors if they're sitting comfortably and if the controls are where they expect them to be. Why should matters be any different for computer users, Peter asks. They'd work happier if the software and hardware they used could divine their needs and could somehow respond if the user showed signs of anger.

People show their emotions through their posture or by fidgeting or frowning. These movements are easy to detect, and can be observed and classified by a camera with image analysis software, Peter said.

More subtle indicators of emotion include heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and electrical resistance of the skin.

"We have developed a glove that has sensors for measuring parameters like these," Peter said. "It's connected to a device that evaluates and saves the data. We're also working on techniques that will enable computers to interpret facial expressions and extract emotional elements from voice signals."

Catching problems before CAD models head off to the next department does away with much model rework down the line.

To make sure that CAD models are as accurate as possible before engineers send them to clients or analysts, Johnson Gate recently implemented special software that calls engineers' attention to potential geometry problems within their CAD models.

Johnson Gate, part of the Johnson Electric Group of Hong Kong, makes automotive powertrain cooling modules. The new software, Cadiq from ITI TranscenData of Milford, Ohio, ensures that CAD models can be used with the company's analysis software without rework, said Marco Davino, head of support services at the company.

"It's not merely a matter of improving the quality of CAD modeling for internal use, but of eliminating at their source any possible problems with the sharing of the models with our customers," Davino said.

At a recent high-performance computing conference, University of Minnesota researchers Paul Woodward and David Porter used Big Ben, the 10-teraflop Cray XT3 system housed at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, to simulate turbulence in real time.

Simulations on the supercomputer Big Ben in Pittsburgh show the shockwaves that are produced when two fluids of different densities contact each other in shear layers with turbulence.

Woodward and Porter, both astrophysicists, ran their turbulence code, Piecewise Parabolic Method, on the XT3 to simulate turbulent fluid dynamics in shear mixing layers. Using the high-performance optical-fiber backbone of the supercomputer, the researchers transmitted results from the simulation in Pittsburgh for run-time visualization at the conference, which was held in Seattle.

"Scientific productivity requires rapid answers to Ôwhat if' questions," said Woodward. "Batch processing gives answers only in weeks or months. Exploratory runs on local resources also take weeks or months.

"Our challenge was to use the XT3 to compress time to an hour from what normally takes a week or two. We wanted to use a large machine to do a smaller problem fast, which is actually the hardest thing to do," he said.

Life and death exist in three dimensions. Now U.S. Army commanders want clearer understanding of operational space for vital battlefield analysis.

The Army's Command and Control Directorate at Fort Monmouth, N.J., creates 3-D models that may one day help commanders rehearse and plan missions and analyze situations on the battlefield. The third dimension gives commanders a more lifelike feel than could any 2-D display, said Ray Schulze, Battle Command Interface branch chief of the U.S. Army's Command and Control Directorate.

But while Army commanders have been creating these 3-D models with their own software, the irony is that they had only limited display on the 2-D monitors and projectors the Command and Control Directorate formerly used.

To remedy that, the directorate recently brought in visualization systems from Fakespace Systems Inc. of Marshalltown, Iowa. Those systems—powered by the vendor's Conduit software—help users gain additional insight into 3-D models through the use of stereoscopic display.

"Stereoscopic display is a critical step in immersing commanders to make them feel present in the situation," Schulze said.

The vendor's software worked with the U.S. Army's source code without adaptation.

Research into how people make decisions while under pressure could help the U.S. military improve training for its commanders and lead to better decision-support software, say researchers at Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Such software analyzes information, like business data, and presents it in a way that can help users make decisions more easily.

People naturally rely on unconscious biases to simplify decision making, said Dennis Folds, a researcher at the institute in Atlanta. His team is looking at how biases affect those making decisions under time stresses and information overload.

The Army Research Institute in Arlington, Va., funded Folds's experiments, which offered subjects a lot of data to process and little time to spend choosing. This simulated the real-life pressures military commanders deal with every day.

Commanders today communicate more directly with personnel in the field.

"This puts far greater pressure on leaders, who must make faster decisions while sifting through more data," Folds said.

To test the effects of their unconscious biases, the subjects sifted through an e-mail inbox stuffed with text messages, maps, photographs, and other information. They had 20 seconds to look at each message and one minute to make a report. The messages contained real evidence as well as false information created to trigger biases.

Based on those e-mails, test subjects were asked to report certain military situations, such as sniper fire or suspected sabotage, but not to report others, like accidents unrelated to enemy activity.

By studying how often each subject referred to certain messages, the studies revealed what kind of information was meaningful to these decision makers.

Folds's research shows that various kinds of bias can lead to errors in judgment when people are dealing with lots of information. Another important finding: When subjects were trained to spot conditions that lead to biases, they were better at detecting the false-alarm e-mail messages.

In a fire, every second counts.

With that in mind, a team of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, is working to perfect specialized masks firefighters would don before entering burning buildings. The masks include displays that help firefighters find their positions within the building and pinpoint the location of other firefighters or of occupants trapped in the fire.

The miniature displays rely on remote sensors installed throughout buildings to transmit floor plan information. Wristbands accompany the masks and take a firefighter's vital statistics so commanders outside the building know moment by moment how their colleagues are doing inside.

The Fire Information and Rescue Equipment project is a collaborative effort between the university and the Chicago Fire Department.

"Firefighters need to know as much as possible about a building when they go in, often in zero visibility," said Chicago Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter. "Now they'll be able to see instantly where they are, what obstacles lie ahead, and where to find people in trouble. It's all about saving lives."

To design the masks, students used computer-aided design software from SolidWorks Inc. in Concord, Mass. Team leader Joel Wilson said CAD software helped him and other students brainstorm the placement of the small display screen in the mask and troubleshoot other design challenges.

"The mask's interior is an unusual shape to design in, particularly when trying to find a good spot for a 6-millimeter diagonal screen that won't block a firefighter's view," said Wilson, a fourth-year mechanical engineering doctoral candidate.

Cyco Software of Atlanta, which makes engineering data management software, has released Cyco AutoManager Meridian to help organizations share technical information across the enterprise, thereby streamlining engineering-related business processes.

VizUp of Vancouver, British Columbia, has updated its software application to VizUp 2.1.4. The application is 3-D CAD polygon reduction and visualization software.

Computational fluid dynamics software maker Fluent Inc. of Lebanon, N.H., has released version 2.2 of its Icemax software, a circuit extraction tool for analyzing advanced integrated circuit package designs.

A developer of Nastran finite element analysis software, Noran Engineering Inc. of Westminster, Calif., has released an upgrade to its FEA software, NEi Nastran, version nine.

The Ascent Center for Technical Knowledge, a division of Rand Worldwide of Mississauga, Ontario, has launched two new courseware titles: Autodesk Inventor R11, Introduction to Modeling and AutoCAD 2007, Update for AutoCAD 2006 Users.

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