Meshing, Visualization, and Computational
Environments Technical Committee

Welcome!

This is the web site of the Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The scope of this technical committee is to explore the application of computer science to pre-processing, post-processing, and infrastructure in support of computational simulation in the Aerospace Community. Specific topics of interest include mesh generation, visualization technologies, user environments, and application integration. This committee provides a forum for members to exchange information, share best practices, and to keep current on the rapidly evolving information technologies impacting computational simulation.

The committee is actively soliciting industry, academic, and government members with experience in the development and application of tools, processes, and techniques for computational simulation. Engineering specialists and first-level managers are sought in particular.

WebEx Telecon - 25 Apr 2007

A WebEx teleconference was held on 25 April 2007 beginning at 2:00 p.m. central time. Thanks to Val Watson and William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Chan, Dannenhoffer, Horowitz, Iannetti, Jones, Karman, Michal, Shih, and Wierse.

Membership

Our new member, Tony Iannetti from NASA Glenn, was introduced. His interests include CFD, meshing applications, customizing scripts, visualization, and the National Combustor Code. Even with the addition of Tony, we are still below the limit of 35 members.

General Business

Iannetti announced the annual TFAWS (Thermal Fluids Analysis Workshop) to be held September 10th in the Cleveland area. This conference includes CFD work.

The Drag Prediction Workshop working group reported receipt of metric ideas from Alter, Chan, and Iannetti. Use of a wiki for publishing the metrics is a good idea, but no one knows specifically how we could host one. Iannetti will research the wiki idea. Once the list matures, we (the TC) should publish it.

Conferences

As a general reminder, ALL sessions chairs MUST nominate a paper from their session for the Best Paper award (or note if none are deserving).

CFD Conference, June, Miami

We have two technical sessions at this conference. We have requested a room from AIAA for a TC meeting.

Aerospace Sciences, Jan 2008, Reno

Thompson reports that abstracts are due 01 June.

AIAA Fluids, Summer 2008, Seattle

Jones will contact the Fluids TC about getting MVCE into the Call for Papers.

Aerospace Sciences, Jan 2009, Orlando

Sekar reports nothing new.

Awards

Four or five nominations have been received from 2 people so far for this year's Best Paper award. Jones produces a new form for nominations with PDF upload.

Publications

Original graphics files have been found from the TC's brochure for production of a poster.

AIAA has not yet responded regarding our request for free exhibit space.

Unstructured Grid Consortium

Jones had nothing new to report as there still isn't any funding for futher development of the API.

New Business

No new business was raised.

WebEx Telecon - 28 Mar 2007

A WebEx teleconference was held on 28 March 2007 beginning at 2:00 p.m. central time. Thanks to Val Watson and William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Belie, Chan, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Godo, Horowitz, Imlay, Jones, Karman, Noack, Ollivier-Gooch, Sekar, Shih, Thompson, Watson, and Wierse.

Membership

A new member application was received from Tony Iannetti at NASA Glenn and his membership on the TC as approved. Welcome Tony!

General

Programming Requirement for Undergrad Aero Engineers

We have been monitoring an on-going project to add a programming requirement to undergraduate aerospace engineering education. The origin of this project was a Aerospace Sciences Group (ASG) leadership meeting at the summer conference in San Francisco at which time the poor programming skills of new graduates was discussed. This lead to the idea for AIAA to petition ABET to add such a requirement.

The AIAA Academic Affairs Comm. (AAC) has been consulted regarding a programming requirement. AAC says non-technical requirements are already putting schedule pressure on adding technical items. In fact, AAC is writing a memo to ABET about these concerns.

A survey is being planned (audience unknown) to get a broader view of aerospace curricula and the scope of the lack of structured programming skills in new grads.

Drag Prediction Workshop

See DPW Meshing Working Group below.

Conferences

CFD 2007, Miami

MVCE is sponsoring two sessions in Miami: one on grid generation, the other on adaptive grids.

There is an open issue on how we can best work with the Fluid Dynamics (FD) TC on this summer meeting. Because it is not our conference, we are at their mercy with respect to getting sessions and related tasks. If we had our own meshing conference colocated with the summer meetings, that might put us on equal footing. However, in order to do that we'd have to get a lot more papers (and better quality papers) than what we've been getting recently.

Regarding the latter, we suffer two known problems. First, we know that meshing papers (for example) are appearing in other TC's sessions. Second, we know that competition with IEEE Viz keeps us from getting more submissions on that topic. We have already identified how publicity can be used to address these problems (see below).

Another way to help our cause would be to limit our focus to one AIAA meeting per year instead of two (Aerospace Sciences and the summer meetings).

Grid Generation Short Course, Miami

MVCE is running a Grid Generation Short Course in Miami this summer. The target audience for this course is users and consumers of meshes and mesh generation software. The deadline for draft presentations was 01 March. Three are still lacking: geometry, overset, and unstructured.

The CFD Subcommittee of the FD TC expressed interest in developing a joint CFD course with MVCE. Our portions would be half day on meshing and half day on viz. The FD TC will take this up for consideration at their TC meeting in Miami.

ASM 2008, Reno

David Thompson is MVCE's Topic Chair for this event. The abstract deadline is June 1st and AIAA is sticking to their new firm deadlien policy.

Fluids 2008, Seattle

Bill Jones will represent MVCE at this event. He should be hearing something from AIAA within a month or two. This meeting may be influenced by whatever MVCE decides about the DPW (see below).

ASM 2009, Orlando

Balu Sekar is MVCE's Topic Chair for this event.

Awards

Only one nomination has been submitted for the 2007 Best Paper from ASM07. Each session chair is urged to submit at least one nomination from their session. Nomination forms are on the web site.

Publications

Year in Review Article

Steve Legensky volunteered to edit the 2007 Year in Review article.

TC Brochures

Chawner will contact ASG to seek funds to have more MVCE brochures printed. In addition to distribution at conferences to seek new members, a brochure will be mailed to each TC chair to raise awareness of MVCE and our mission.

We are going to make a poster from the brochure. Gary Belie has offered to produce a printable "master" from the original Adobe Illustrator and TIFF files. John Dannenhoffer has offered to print the actual poster from the printable master.

Another publicity idea was to obtain no-cost exhibit space from AIAA for MVCE. Chawner asked AIAA about this and is still waiting for a reply.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group

Todd Michal forwarded to Bill Jones information about the placement of UGC-related topics in NASA NRAs. The idea is to get funding for someone to continue to advance the UGC API.

DPW Meshing Working Group

Drag Predicition Workshop (DPW) web site: http://aaac.larc.nasa.gov/tsab/cfdlarc/aiaa-dpw//

We had been invited to assist the DPW with meshing related tasks:

  • Mesh metric definition and calculation
  • Mesh refinement - theory and practice
  • DPW Mesh Workshop

We replied in part "MVCE does not believe that running the Mesh Generation Workshop is something we want to pursue at the present time as it may not be the best means of accomplishing the goals." We concluded with "We look forward to continued discussions on how MVCE can support your efforts."

DPW was extremely displeased with our reply. Extremely displeased. Extremely.

Under the assumption that there had been a failure to communicate, Chawner and John Vassberg (DPW) had an hour-long teleconference on 3/27 during which Vassberg restated and clarified their vision of how MVCE could help.

Mesh Metrics

  • Mesh quality is currently checked by running a flow solver.
  • Mesh problems (e.g. negative volumes) should be able to be easily identified in advance.
  • Goal: Define a suite of mesh metrics. Define each metric and how precisely it is to be computed. Call it the MVCE Mesh Metric Suite, Version 1. No judgements are to be made about the influence of those metrics on solution quality.
  • Goal: It would be nice if software could be made available to compute and display those measures.

Grid refinement

  • Most DPW participants provide a mesh of "medium" density where "medium" is defined as the mesh that would be used in standard practice to compute answers of reasonable engineering accuracy.
  • Virtually no-one generates the fine mesh or the coarse mesh. Furthermore, no one generates the coarse and fine mesh in a well-defined mathematical matter (e.g. factor of 1.5) that would allow any conclusion to be made about mesh-indepenedence of the solution.
  • Goal: Have a method for "easily" producing coarse and fine meshes given the medium mesh.
  • For structured grids, this is considered to be "trivial".
  • For unstructured and hybrid meshes, this is a known open area of research.

Symposium on Meshes

  • DPW meshes are usually produced at the last minute and are of unknown quality.
  • Goal: MVCE to sponsor at technical session at the AIAA summer 2008 conference on the DPW IV meshes including (for example) papers on the MVCE Mesh Metric Suite, application of the metrics to DPW IV meshes, application of the metrics to DPW I, II, and III meshes and preliminary correlation with solutions, dissenting views about a priori mesh quality metrics.

Formation of Working Group

In light of this restatement of DPW’s goals for MVCE involvement, their invitation we re-opened for consideration. It was proposed, seconded, and unanimously approved to form a DPW Meshing Working Group. The chair of this WG will be Chawner. Participants will include: Karman, Ollivier-Gooch, Dannenhoffer, Imlay. Goals of this WG:

  • By April’s MVCE TC meeting, draft a response to DPW about MVCE participation
  • Starting point will be collection of mesh quality metrics.
  • Push for an MVCE-DPW meeting at the summer conference in Miami.
  • Invite DPW folks to take MVCE’s Grid Generation Short Course in Miami.

New Business

No new business was idenfied.

Next Meetings

The next regularly scheduled WebEx telecon is Wednesday 25 April at 3:00 p.m. (eastern).

MVCE should meet at the summer 2007 conference in Miami and arrangements will be made with AIAA. We will also plan on meeting with the DPW folks in Miami.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned after approximately 90 minutes.

Meeting at AIAA Aerospace Sciences, 09 Jan 2007

A TC meeting was held at the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Reno, Nevada on Tuesday 09 January 2007 beginning at 7:30 p.m. TC members in attendance included: Chawner, Karman, Jones, Alter, Thompson, Michal, Imlay, Thornburg, Dannenhoffer, Noack, Shih, Ollivier-Gooch, Eiseman, and Sekar. Also in attendance were Jeff Slotnick and two potential new members: Joe Volpe and Ray Maple.

Slides used to run the meeting are available in PowerPoint format here.

Awards

Todd Michal, chair of the Awards Subcommittee, began the meeting by presenting the Best Paper Certificate of Merit for 2006 to Dr. Steve L. Karman for his paper "Unstructured Viscous Layer Insertion Using Linear-Elastic Smoothing" (AIAA 2005-0942) from the Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2006.

Nominations are now sought from any TC member for the Best Paper 2007. Session chairs were encouraged to nominate at least one paper from their session. This year's deadline for nominations is 25 August.

Conferences

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2007

John Dannenhoffer, chair of the Conferences Subcommittee, gave an overview of the TC's activities at this year's Aerospace Sciences Meeting. There are two sessions.

Mesh Generation was held Tuesday morning in Carson 3 and was chaired by Noack and Alter. The session featured a 1-hour invited presentation by Dr. John Vassberg in memory of Dr. Timothy Baker which was followed by 6 technical papers. Attendance during the Baker presentation was over 50 and remained between 30-40 for the rest of the session. A summary of the Baker presentation will be posted to the MVCE web site.

The "Geometry, Computational Environments, and Post-Processing" session will be held Wednesday morning in Carson 3 and chaired by Jones and Sekar. The session will feature 8 technical papers.

Curiously, the Fluid Dynamics TC is hosting a session called "CFD Grid Methods" in Crystal 1 on Thursday morning with 7 papers. Despite our contact with TC chairs and the Fluid Dynamics topic chair for this conference, they still didn't redirect meshing papers to our TC.

CFD Conference 2007

The 28th CFD Conference will be held 25-28 June in Miami and Dannenhoffer is coordinating our TC's involvement with the Fluid Dynamics TC. Summary of abstracts reviewed by MVCE is:

  • grid generation and geometry: 5 of 7 accepted
  • adaptive grids: 4 of 6 accepted
  • visualization; 0 of 2 accepted

Despite our acceptance or rejection, the FD TC has final say.

The TC will meet in Miami at this conference. Conference call capability will be sought so that TC members who can't attend in person can still participate.

Aerospace Sciences 2008

The Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2008 will be held 07-10 January in Reno (last year in Reno before moving to Orlando). MVCE's topic chair is David Thompson. Abstracts are due 01 June.

Fluid Dynamics 2008

The summer meeting will be held in Seattle during 2008. Bill Jones volunteered to work with the Fluid Dynamics TC and represent MVCE's interests.

Aerospace Sciences 2009

The Aerospace Sciences Meeting in 2009 will be held in Orlando. Balu Sekar volunteered to be the MVCE Topic Chair.

Misc.

Several TC members voiced complaints that AIAA's notifications (letter, email) to session chairs were either late, never arrived, and sometimes completely unexpected. Feedback needs to be provided to AIAA to ensure that session chairs are notified in a timely manner.

Grid Generation Short Course

AIAA will be offering a 2-day Grid Generation Short Course taught by MVCE TC members on the Thursday and Friday of the summer 2007 conference week. Course outline is as follows

Day 1
Grid generation basics (1 hour) Dannenhoffer
Geometry definition (2 hours) Chawner
Block structured grids (2 hours) Jones
Cartesian grids (2 hours) Karman
Overset grids (2 hours) Noack
Day 2
Unstructured grids (2 hours) Steve Owen
Hybrid grids (1 hours) Karman
Grid adaption (2 hours) Cavallo
Future directions (1 hours) Dannenhoffer
10 Questions You Should Ask Your Grid Generation (0.5 hours) Dannenhoffer
Q&A (0.5 hours) All

The development schedule for the course is as follows:

  • 01 Mar - Draft slides due to Dannenhoffer
  • 16 Mar - Slide reviews returned to authors
  • 15 May - Final slides due to Dannenhoffer
  • 30 May - Complete course package to AIAA for printing, etc.
  • 28 Jun - Course offered in Miami

TC membership will be polled for their suggestions for the "10 questions..." topic.

The go/no-go decision is made 3-weeks prior to the course date. MVCE will receive 12% of the proceeds of this course.

Potential New CFD Course

There is interest in developing a joint course with the CFD TC.

Membership

Eight TC members had been identified as inactive and were contacted to determine their intentions with respect to continued involvement in the TC. Benyo and Brentner indicated that they will resign. No reply was received from Legensky and Wang which indicates an intention to resign. The other inactive members want to stay involved. TC members in attendance indicated their acceptance of this plan. As a result, the member count would be 23.

Two potential new members, Maple and Volpe, were in attendance. They will be provided with the TC membership application so that their candidacy can be considered.

John Dannenhoffer will become TC chair beginning in May 2007.

Nominations had been sought for a new TC vice-chair. Steve Karman was the only nominee. His nomination was considered and approved by a unanimous vote of the TC members present. He will become TC vice-chair beginning in May 2007.

Publications

An editor was sought for the TC's Year in Review article to be published in the December issue of Aerospace America. There were no volunteers.

A small quantify of MVCE TC brochures remain for distribution at forums where potential TC members may be found. Contact Chawner if you want some.

We discussed having more brochures produced and having a poster made. The first order of business will be to find the original files for the brochure to see if they are in a format amenable to either use. Chawner will do this.

Update 23 Jan 2007: We have the original artwork in terms of a couple Adobe Illustrator files and the support TIFF images. Brochure design and production was done by Katy Kafantaris (KKafantaris at myrida-design-works dot com), www.myriad-design-works.com.

A suggestion was made that we seek no-cost space in the exhibit hall to promote the MVCE TC. Chawner will contact AIAA to see what they say.

General Business

The TC was reminded that the Aerospace Sciences Group leadership has forwarded to the New Initiatives Subcommittee an idea for a proposal for AIAA to petition ABET to require undergraduates to take a programming course.

John Dannehoffer reported on several AIAA meetings he attended at ASM07 where he learned the following:

  • AIAA is interested in having more TCs create public policy subcommittees.
  • AIAA is concerned that membership is stagnating.
  • AIAA is concerned that journal publication is down.

The TC had been positioned by the Drag Prediction Workshop to cooperate with them and run a Mesh Generation Workshop to be held 6 months in advance of the DPW for the purpose of managing their meshes. After discussion and debate, the TC's position is that we will not run such a meeting. Rather, we'll dedicate our CFP for the next several conferences to the ideas of mesh quality and grid independent solutions. A letter will be drafted by Chawner for review by the TC before sending it to the DPW.

New Business

No new business was discussed.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 9:30 p.m.

Unstructured Grid Consortium

The Unstructured Grid Consortium (UGC) working group met immediately following the TC meeting.

Email Update, 20 Nov 2006

An email with the following information was sent to TC membership on 20 December 2006.

General

Idea: AIAA/ASG petition ABET to require undergrad programming course.

Mesh Generation Workshop - Planning doc to be drafted by Misegades, Jones, Eiseman and presented at ASM meeting.

Membership

Please update your membership information at aiaa.org.

Inactive members have been contacted about their future with the TC. Two of those contacted have decided to retire. Three have not replied (and not replying was to be considered as retirement).

Leadership Transition - Nominations are still being sought for TC Vice-chairperson. Steve Karman is our only nominee to date. We will vote at ASM.

Conferences

ASM 2007

Tuesday morning in Carson 3
Session 77-MVC-1 "Mesh Generation"
Chairs: Noack and Alter
This session includes a special invited presentation to be given by John Vassberg in memory of Tim Baker. A special notice about this presentation is to be included in the front of the conference program.

Wednesday morning in Carson 3
Session 139-MVC-2 "Geometry, Computational Environments and Post-Processing"
Chairs: Jones and Sekar

CFD 2007

Abstract review is in progress.

Grid Generation Short Course

Draft presentations due 15 Jan.

ASM 2008

Call for papers drafted.

Awards

2006 best paper presented at MVCE TC meeting at ASM

Publications

2006 Year in Review article has been published.

UGC

A short meeting will be held in Reno following the MVCE TC meeting to discuss the future of the UGC. Todd Michal will not be able to continue as chairperson of the UGC in 2007. A volunteer is solicited to take on the leadership role for this important group.

WebEx Telecon, 01 Nov 2006

A WebEx teleconference was held on 01 November 2006 beginning at 1:00 p.m. central time. Thanks to Val Watson and William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Alter, Cavallo, Chan, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Eiseman, Godo, Horowitz, Karman, Noack, Shih, Thornburg, and Watson.

General Business

Petition ABET to Require Programming Course for Undergrads

There is a movement within the Aerospace Sciences Group to petition ABET to add a requirement for undergraduate engineers to take a programming course.

ASG leadership passed this idea to the new initiatives subcommittee (NIS). There has been no progress since then.

Proposed Overset Technology Working Group

The objective of this effort was to establish within the TC a working group in the area of Overset Technology. The primary goal or work product of the working group would be to run the bi-annual overset meshing symposium.

This idea was discussed at last month's Overset Symposium in Houston. Penn State volunteered to host the 2008 symposium, removing the near-term need for MVCE's involvement. Furthermore, the overset folks fear that AIAA involvement would take disrupt their current casual style.

Further discussion during the TC meeting indicated that there are no other overset requirements that could be served by an MVCE working group, with one exception. The exception was the potential future offering by MVCE of an overset short course. However, the later could handled by MVCE's Conferences subcommittee rather than a working group.

A motion was made to discontinue plans to form an Overset Technology Working for the present. The motion was seconded. The attending TC members voted unanimously in favor of the motion.

Drag Prediction Workshop

The Drag Prediction Workshop has a problem managing their grids. They asked MVCE if we were open to helping. Their problems include: late delivery of meshes such that there was limited time to run solutions, delivery of meshes of poor quality, delivery of meshes that don't meet basic constraints (e.g. spacing), etc. DPW's idea was to work with MVCE and hold a Mesh Generation Workshop approximately 6 months prior to the DPW at which time baseline meshes would be chosen and documented including quality criteria.

TC members Misegades, Jones, and Chawner participated in a DPW telecon on 29 September. Some of the topics discussed during this DPW telecon were relayed to the TC and are listed below.

  • They don't know when the next DPW will be.
  • They don't know what the configuration for the next DPW will be.
  • They want to have baseline meshes identified, documented, and available for download approximately 6 months prior to the DPW. Given that the DPW is normally held at the summer conferences, that puts a Mesh Generation Workshop in the January time frame.
  • Regardless of the availability of baseline grids, 25-35% of DPW participants use their own mesh.
  • The DPW wants to require all participants to provide their mesh to all participants if they make their own.
  • DPW wants to quantify and document grid quality in advance.
  • DPW says that structured grids are still most widely used and suffer the most grid quality problems.
  • DPW says that unstructured/hybrid meshes show the widest variation in solution accuracy and they question whether anyone really understands the mesh quality issues.
  • They want to do three levels of multigrid refinement but can't afford the points required to do a factor of 2 at each level so instead they shoot for 1.5.

Comments from the TC members who participated in the DPW telecon and membership at large include:

  • We should absolutely not volunteer to generate meshes.
  • CEI volunteers to develop and provide a software application that will compute, display, and document mesh quality.
  • We should strongly push CGNS as the data exchange format of choice.
  • MVCE would get more value out of a MGW if it served the same function as the DPW did for solvers: mesh generator comparison.
  • You can't tell if a mesh is good before running the solver.
  • What about adaptive grids?
  • How would this MGW fit with the ISGG meeting and the IMR?
  • What logistics are involved in running a 1-day AIAA event like this? Technical papers? Presentations? Fee collection?

A motion was made to form a small team to take input from the TC and document all the specifics of how MVCE could do this. The original DPW telecon team was proposed (Misegades and Jones) plus a new volunteer, Eiseman. The motion was seconded. All participating TC members voted in favor of the motion. Action Item: Misegades, Jones, Eiseman Collect input from TC members and DPW people, compile into a document describing how this event could be run an organized, the contributions from MVCE, and have it available for discussion at ASM2007.

Membership

Annual Membership Update

Please update your membership information on-line at aiaa.org.

Annual Inactive Membership Purge

All inactive members will be contact by email during November to ascertain their intentions regarding future involvement in the TC. If they choose to retire, they will be removed from the roster. Recruitment of new members can begin at the Aerospace Sciences Meeting with the goal of having new members in-place by the beginning of the 2007-2008 TC year in May 2007. Action Item, Chawner Send email to inactive members.

Leadership Transition

Chawner's term as chairperson ends in April 2007 at which Dannenhoffer will assume the chair position. There's an opening for vice-chair and nominations are now open with voting to take place at the TC's meeting at ASM. Karman was nominated. Action Item, ALL: Email your nominations for vice-chair to jrc at pointwise dot com.

Conferences

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2007

Karman reports that the preliminary program has been sent to the TC membership by email. All session chairs and authors for MVCE's two sessions have been contacted. The manuscript upload deadline is 29 December. One session includes a special 1-hour invited paper by Vassberg about Tim Baker's work. Action Item, Karman: Find out whether this paper can be given special notice in the front of the conference program.

CFD 2007

MVCE's objective is to become an official sponsor of this conference, to assist with the CFP, reviewing abstracts, chairing sessions, etc. Our plan is to continue to cooperate closely with the Fluid Dynamics TC. Abstract's for CFD 2007 are due Friday 03 November!

Grid Generation Short Course

This course is to be run by MVCE at CFD 2007 on 28-29 June. Outlines have been received for all presentations except two where authors had to back out: unstructured meshes and hybrid meshes. Action Item, Chawner: Contact Steve Owen at Sandia to see if he's willing to present the material for unstructured meshes that he presents annually at the Int'l Meshing Roundtable. Action Item, ALL Find someone to write and present material on hybrid meshing.

The next deadline is 15 January when draft presentations are due. We might also meet at ASM 2007 on this topic. Action Item, Authors: prepare drafts by 15 January.

ASM 2008

Thompson is MVCE's topic chair for ASM 2008. MVCE's portion of the CFP has been submitted and publication is pending.

Awards

Michal ran a telecon on 19 October at which voting was conducted for the MVCE Best Paper Certificate of Merit 2006. Four papers were nominated and reviewed, rated, and ranked by all Awards Subcommittee members. Voting was very close. The recipient is Steve Karman. The certificate will be presented at the MVCE meeting in Reno. Action Item, Michal: Determine whether the official AIAA photographer can be present to photograph the ceremony.

Publications

Cavallo reported that AIAA made only minor edits to the Year in Review article. These edits were approved. AIAA indicated that only one of our two figures would be published. We are waiting for AIAA to send us the PDF of the final article.

MVCE brochure are still available for distribution. Alter and Horowitz requested some for Supercomputing.

Unstructured Grid Consortium

No report.

New Business

None.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at approximately 1:55 p.m. (central).

WebEx Telecon, 25 Aug 2006

A WebEx teleconference was held on 25 August 2006 beginning at 3:00 p.m. central time. Thanks to William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Chan, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Jones, Karman, Misegades, and Watson.

General Business

Require Aerospace Undergraduates to Take Programming Course

During the Aerospace Sciences Group (ASG) leadership meeting in June, someone raised the idea of petitioning ABET to require undergraduate aerospace engineering students to take a programming course. The TC's opinions on the subject from our last telecon were forwarded up the chain of command to the Aerospace Sciences Group leadership, including the director and deputy director. This initiated an email exchange that indicated a general interest in pursuing the idea further. The idea was then forwarded to the New Initiatives Subcommittee (NIS) to seek their opinion and guidance. That was in mid-July. There has been no activity since, except for a few emails from other TCs chairs who are just getting caught up on their email.

NEW Info, added 04 Nov: Our deputy director, Allen Arrington, writes: WRT the ABET task, there has been some progress. As mentioned in the minutes, this idea was sent over to NIS. Basil volunteered me to lead this effort. I have been collecting some information (basically pulling the major thoughts from the email traffic over the past couple months). I have a call in to the AIAA VP-elect for education and also got a new lead of someone to call that is involved with ABET. I will continue to gather data and try to develop a draft white paper. I hope to have something ready prior to the Reno meetings.

Overset Technology Working Group

At the TC's meeting back in January, we agreed to consider forming a working group with the topic of Overset Technology. The main activity of this working group would be the bi-annual Symposium on Overset Composite Grids and Solution Technology. We are waiting for feedback from the symposium's leaders on whether this is something they wish to pursue. They will meet next 02-05 October.

Drag Prediction Workshop

The Applied Aerodynamics TC has held three bi-annual Drag Prediction Workshops in conjunction with the summer conferences. After the most recent workshop this past June, they concluded that the grid has such a strong effect on the solution accuracy that it might be appropriate to have a Grid Generation Workshop in advance of the DPW. MVCE indicated a general willingness to participate in such an event should it occur. [Action Item: Jones, Misegades] Proactively follow-up with representatives of the APA TC regarding MVCE's desire to work with them on a Grid Generation Workshop.

Membership

No news to report.

Conferences

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2007, Reno

Acceptance and rejection letters will be sent to abstract authors on Monday 28 August. The accepted papers have been divided into two sessions as follows.

  • Geometry, Computational Environments, and Post-processing
    • chairs: Sekar, Jones
    • 8 papers
  • Mesh Generation
    • chairs: Noack, Alter
    • 7 papers
    • 1 invited paper (1 hr) by Vassberg on Tim Baker's work

[Action Item: Sekar, Jones, Noack, Alter] Nomination forms for MVCE Best Paper should be completed and submitted at the conference, not afterward.

CFD 2007

MVCE still seeks to become an official sponsor of this conference and will continue to cooperate with the sponsoring TCs and assist with the conference in anyway possible.

Grid Generation Short Course

AIAA has approved this MVCE short course, to be held on 28-29 June 2007 in conjunction with the CFD Conference. The short course profile form submitted to AIAA is here (PDF) and the course's outline is here (PDF). Authors for the various sections were asked to confirm their willingness and ability to contribute to this project. All authors present during the telecon indicated in the affirmative. [Action Item: Noack, Michal, Steinbrenner, Cavallo] Email Dannenhoffer ASAP to confirm your willingness and ability. [Action Item, ALL Authors] Presentation outlines (slide titles and main points) due to Dannenhoffer by 15 September.

ASM 2008

David Thompson has volunteered to be MVCE's Topic Chair for this conference.

Awards

A telecon has been scheduled for 31 August at 1:00 p.m. (central) to assign nominated papers to reviewers.

Publications

MVCE Brochure Distribution

Brochures remain available for distribution at venues where you think potential TC members can be found. Chawner will be distributing them at the upcoming Overset Symposium and the International Meshing Roundtable. If you need some for distribution, please email Chawner.

Year in Review

The second draft of the TC's Year in Review article for Aerospace America was discussed (PDF). No specific comments on the content were raised during the meeting, but TC members are urged to send specific editorial comments to Cavallo.

Five candidate images were made available for member voting to choose two for inclusion in the article. The top two images chosen were "Candidate 1 - Hex core meshing" and "Candidate 4 - Adaptive Meshing"

[Action Item: ALL members] Email Cavallo with any editorial changes to the article text ASAP.

[Action Item: Cavallo] Prepare final draft for TC review by 31 August.

Unstructured Grid Consortium

No news to report.

New Business

Dannenhoffer proposed that purging inactive members be conducted annually. Timing would be:

  • November: Contact inactive members by email to determine their intentions.
  • January: At ASM, recruit new members to fill vacated slots.
  • February: Notify AIAA of updated roster during their annual membership renewal drive.
  • May: New members and old active members in place for new TC year.

Telecon participants agreed this would be a good idea.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at approximinately 3:40 p.m. (central).

WebEx Telecon, 26 Jun 2006

A WebEx teleconference was held on 26 June 2006 beginning at 1:00 p.m. central time. Thanks to William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Alter, Cavallo, Chan, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Imlay, Jones, Karman, Noack, Thompson, Van der Velden, and Watson.

General Business

Relocation to Aerospace Sciences Group

MVCE has officially been moved from the Structures, Design, & Test (SDT) group to the Aerospace Sciences Group (ASG), effective the beginning of the current TC year (01 May 2006). Our chain of command within this organization includes the ASG Director, David Riley from Boeing, and the Deputy Director for Fluids Sciences, Allan Arrington from NASA Glenn.

ASG Leadership Meeting held at the Fluids Conference in San Francisco

Chawner participated in a meeting of TC leadership within ASG that was held at the summer Fluid Dynamics Conference in San Francisco in early June.

The Aerospace Sciences Meeting (ASM) will be held in Orlando 2009, 2010, and 2011 at the Orlando World Center Marriott Resort & Conference Center. In 2012, ASM will move to another location. The move in 2012 is due to a conflicting event at the Orlando Marriott. It's not clear whether there's a strategy to hold ASM at the same city for many years (as has been done with Reno), or whether ASM will move from city to city in 3-4 year chunks (3-4 years are required to get a good deal from the hotels).

AIAA has produced a promotional DVD (approx. 5 minutes run time) about the institute and careers in aerospace. One potential use of this is to recruit members, especially at the student level. If you are interested in getting a copy of the DVD for your own use, please contact John Chawner at (jrc at pointwise dot com).

Combined attendance at the summer conferences (Fluids Dynamics, et al) was approximately 1,200 an (unquantified) increase from last year. AIAA opined that the increase was due to the desirability of the location (San Francisco).

AIAA seeks feedback from users of the on-line Conference Administration (CA) system. AIAA develops this software themselves (rather than use a commercially available system) so they are very interested in making sure it meets the needs of their users. Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Make sure that MVCE's conference chair collects feedback from CA system users after each conference and forwards it to AIAA.

AIAA recommends that the TC maintain on our web site a list of our conference chairs and session chairs for historical purposes. During the telecon it was mistakenly stated that reviewers should also be posted; that is NOT the case. Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Compile a list of conference and session chairs and forward them to Chawner for posting to the web site.

The Technical Activities Committee (TAC) is considering adoption of standard abstract requirements (e.g. length, format) for all conferences.

Mentioned only briefly at the end of the ASG Leadership Meeting was the notion that ASG or AIAA should initiate an effort to get ABET to institute a requirement that engineering undergrads be taught computer programming. This idea generated an interesting discussion during our MVCE telecon. In general, MVCE members seemed to think that this was a good idea. Chawner, Noack, Imlay, and Van der Velden stated opinions that employing the current crop of recent engineering graduates is problematic because they have to be taught to program. Similarly, the opinion was stated that programming is a fundamental engineering skill similar to structures, fluids, calculus, and thermodynamics. The implication isn't that engineers will program, but understanding how the programs they use have been written will enhance their use of these tools. However, MVCE members from the academic side of things (Dannenhoffer, Thompson, Karman) point out a practical reality; credit hours for undergrads are capped, so to add programming something will have to be dropped. Furthermore, the point out, the real drivers behind all this will have to be the big employers (e.g. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon) and they've been asking for courses on ethics, collaborative design, communication skills, etc. Action Item, Chawner: Email a summary of our discussion of this matter to our ASG leadership and find out exactly how seriously the wish to pursue it.

ASG Long Range Planning Meeting

Chawner participated in a ASG Long Range Planning Meeting that was held at the summer Fluid Dynamics Conference in San Francisco in early June. The meeting topic was locations for the summer (Fluids et al) conferences.

  • 2007 = Maimi
  • 2008 = Seattle
  • 2009 = target is central U.S. including DC, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Austin, Minneapolis, and Dallas
  • 2010 = target is western U.S. including San Diego, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and Denver)

Staffing MVCE Subcommittees

At ASM 2006, we explicitly sought volunteers for MVCE subcommittees. A change was proposed: volunteers would be sought only when they’re needed (i.e. when we need paper reviewers, or someone to write a brochure, etc.). No one objected to this policy.

Proposed Overset Technology Working Group

At ASM 2006, the TC agreed to explore whether to create a working group in the area of Overset Technology. The main product of this working group would be their biannual symposium (2006 event). Information about AIAA management of this conference was obtained and forwarded to the Overset leadership (Noack, Jeff Slotnick). They will consider it when they meet this October and get back to us.

Membership

No news to report in this area.

Conferences

The Conferences Subcommitee report was given by John Dannenhoffer.

ASM 2007

Steve Karman is our Topic Chair for ASM 2007. 15 abstracts have been received and reviewed. 1 is likely to be rejected based on the reviews. The relatively low number of abstracts (we've had enough for 3 sessions in past years) is thought to be due to AIAA's no-extensions policy on the abstract deadline. That's enough papers for two sessions. One session will be on meshing, the other will have papers on visualization and computational environments. This is a much better balance of papers than we've had in the recent past (they've been skewed toward meshing). Sessions have to be finalized by 15 July. It was suggested and agreed to that we add a 16th invited paper to be a tribute and summary of recently-departed Tim Baker's contributions to the field. Suggestions were sought on whether to and how to provide reviewer feedback to authors. It was agreed that feedback should be given and Dannenhoffer will provide Karman with accept and reject email templates into which the feedback can be provided.

CFD Conference 2007

MVCE had sought to be an official sponsor of the biannual CFD Conference, to be held next in Miami during 2007. The call for papers is out, but it's not clear yet how official MVCE's involvement is. The main issue is to be able to review papers and organize sessions in our fields of expertise. Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Contact Chris Roy to find out where we stand.

Meshing Short Course

Status of our proposed meshing short course is unclear. We submitted the proposal to AIAA at the end of January. Next contact was on 16 May when we were asked whether the course can be stretched to 1 or 2 days to which we immediately replied in the affirmative. There has been no contact since then. Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Contact Trisha Carr and get an update on the status.

Awards

The Awards Subcommittee chair was not present so no news was reported. Agenda items were to include publication in Aerospace America of our 2005 Best Paper winner and voting on the 2006 Best Paper.

Publications

The Publications Subcommittee report was given by Peter Cavallo.

Year in Review Article

MVCE has returned paperwork to AIAA signaling our intent to write an article for the annual Year in Review issue of Aerospace America. Our 600 word article with up to 2 pictures (300 dpi TIFF or JPEG with caption) is due to AIAA on 06 September. In order to meet that deadline, the following schedule has been developed (NLT = no later than).

  • Gather Inputs From TC, 6/26-7/24, NLT 8/11
  • 1st draft to TC, 7/31, NLT 8/7
  • 2nd draft to TC, 8/11, NLT 8/11
  • final edits, 8/21-8/28, NLT 8/28
  • final TC approval, 8/28, NLT 8/31
  • submit to AIAA, 8/31, NLT 9/6

In addition to subject matter from the three MVCE disciplines, part of the article will cover Tim Baker's contributions to the field.

Action Item, EVERYONE: Contribute subject matter for the article to Peter Cavallo (cavallo at craft-tech dot com).

MVCE Brochure Distribution

We still have MVCE brochures available for you to distribute at events you attend where potential TC members might be found. Email Chawner (jrc at pointwise dot com) if you'd like some.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group

The working group's chair couldn't attend so there is no news to report.

New Business

There was no new business.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned shortly after 2:00 p.m. central time.

WebEx Telecon, 08 Mar 2006

A WebEx teleconference was held on 08 March 2006 beginning at 2:30 p.m. central time. Thanks to William Chan for hosting the telecon. Participants included: Belie, Chan, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Karman, Michal, Noack, Ollivier-Gooch, Sekar, Shih, and Thompson.

General Business

Relocation from SD&T to Aerospace Sciences

In Reno, the TC voted to request that AIAA relocate us from Structures Design & Test (SD&T) to Aerospace Sciences. The following people have been informed of our request and have endorsed it:

  • Kathleen Atkins, our current deputy-director
  • David Jenson, director of SD&T
  • Susan Ying, director of Aerospace Sciences
  • Basil Hassan, deputy director for Fluid Sciences
  • Charley Saff, VP of Technical Activities

Bruce Wilson of the New Initiatives Subcomittee (NIS) was also called in regarding procedural issues. As it stands now, the final decision rests with the Board which meets at the end of April. The process involves a recommendation from TAC (Technical Activities Comm.) with approval from NIS.

It was suggested during the telecon that we determine who in particular will ensure that this issue gets raised during the Board meeting. An email has been sent requesting this information.

Update 3/9: Charley Saff writes: "The plan as discussed yesterday in TAC Exec is to send the request for the move to TAC for an e-mail vote this month. The change will be incorporated into the TAC organization structure that will be presented to the Board in April for approval. Regardless of Board approval of that organizational structure for TAC, the move will be effective with the vote from TAC this month."

Formalization of Subcommittees

John Chawner will chair the newly formed Membership Subcommittee. Peter Cavallo will chair the newly formed Publications Subcomittee.

Overset Technology Working Group

The TC voted in Reno to investigate forming a working group in the area of overset grid and solution technology (Overset Technology, OT). The motivation comes from the large number of technical papers in MVCE-sponsored sessions at recent conferences. The current critical mass in OT lies in a bi-annual symposium. (The web site for this year's symposium is www.arl.hpc.mil/events/Overset2006/.)

The main "product" of an OT working group would be this symposium. Having AIAA offload conference administration would be a benefit to the OT community. Various approvals would have to be obtained from the TAC to run this symposium. The choices are whether or not to colocate the OT symposium with an existing AIAA event (e.g. CFD conference) or keep it separate. The only difference is the level of approval required (more is required for a separate event) and the cost (goes up for a separate event). AIAA's costs for running the a separate event would be $5,000-$10,000. Because the OT symposium currently doesn't require formal technical papers, it's not clear whether AIAA's on-line conference administration system would be of use. Any profit from an OT symposium would be credited to MVCE.

Other potential benefits from having an OT working group include increased membership, and technology activities in the area of software and standards.

No further research is being performed. The findings have been turned over to Noack for presentation to the OT community at this year's symposium for their consideration.

infoMembership

Hugh Thornburg's nomination form was received and distributed to TC membership prior to the telecon. No commentary or discussion was forthcoming. His nomination was accepted by unanimous oral vote.

infoConferences

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2007

Steve Karman is the MVCE topic chair for ASM 2007. Abstracts are due 22 May and AIAA is committed to maintaining that as a hard deadline. Reviewers have been recruited from the TC membership. Three sessions (same as ASM 2006) are reserved for MVCE.

We are working on finding the right person or persons that will allow MVCE to become a sponsoring TC of the CFD conference, targeting 2007.

An AIAA Professional Development Course Profile Form was submitted to AIAA for the proposed Grid Generation short course (PDF file). We await AIAA's response.

infoAwards

2005 Best Paper

We will be contacting AIAA to see about placing a brief article and photo in Aerospace America regarding the 2005 Best Paper award presentation at ASM 2006.

2006 Best Paper

Four nominations have been received for Best Paper from ASM 2006. More are sought; a list of papers and authors are available on the Awards S.C. web page.

infoPublications

Year in Review

Please send your ideas for the 2006 Year in Review article to Peter Cavallo.

Brochure Distribution

We have about 100 MVCE brochures left for distribution at conferences and other forums where potential MVCE members might be found. We especially seek members from the visualization and computational environments communities. Anyone planning to attend such an event can email Chawner and request a handful of brochures to be left at the site.

infoUnstructured Grid Consoritum

Grid image and UGC URL have been provided to the International Meshing Roundtable for inclusion in the Call for Papers and on this year's conference t-shirt as the 2005 Meshing Maestro award recipient.

Government funding for upgrades to API V2.0 is being sought and its availability should by known later this year.

New Business

No new business was raised.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m. (central).

TC Meeting at Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2006, 10 Jan 2006

A meeting of the MVCE TC was held in conjunction with the AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting on 10 January 2006 in Room Teton 2 of the Reno Hilton. The meeting began at approximately 7:30 p.m. In attendance were: John Chawner, Bill Jones, Steve Karman, Stephen Alter*, Ralph Noack, Jeff Slotnick*, S. Gopalsamy*, Alan Shih*, Peter Cavallo, Todd Michal, Donald Leich*, Jay Horowitz, Jamshid Samareh*, Shahyar Pirzadeh*, John Dannenhoffer, Earl Duque*, Ken Brentner, Alex Van Der Velden*, David Thompson, Hugh Thornburg*, Chris Reed*, Ed Ascoli*. (Names marked with an asterisk are those of non-members.)

The PowerPoint slides used to run the meeting are available here: MVCE_Reno2006+UGC.ppt. As the name of the file implies, slides from the Unstructured Grid Consortium working group are also included.

Awards Subcommittee

Todd Michal presented news from the Awards Subcommittee. First, the TC's Best Paper Award for 2005 was presented to Lee Kania and Shahyar Pirzadeh for "A Geometrically-Derived Background Function for Automated Unstructured Mesh Generation" (AIAA 2005-5240) presented at the CFD Conference in Toronto. Dr. Kania was unable to attend and will be mailed his certificate.

The 2006 activities of the Awards Subcommittee were reviewed. The subcommittee was formed, two awards defined (Best Paper and Service), procedures were developed, and the Best Paper award was given.

In order to better conform to AIAA's Awards procedures, several changes will be instituted during 2006. The Service award will be eliminated (there is no AIAA provision for this type of award), the Best Paper Award will be renamed the Best Paper Certificate of Merit, and the schedule will be changed in order to give AIAA 60 days advance notice. The web site will be changed to better support the awards process by listing papers and providing a form of "e-ballot"

Session chairs are urged to submit nominations for Best Paper ASAP after the conference.

The 2006 Awards calendar is:

  • Jan-Mar: Collect nominations from Aerospace Sciences.
  • Mar: Evaluate nominations from Aerospace Sciences.
  • Jun-Aug: Collect nominations from summer meeting.
  • Aug 25th: Close nominations.
  • Aug: Evaluation nominations from summer meeting.
  • Sep: Identify 5 finalist papers.
  • Oct 20: Select Best Paper.
  • Oct 27: Notify AIAA.
  • Jan: Present Best Paper Certiciate.

Conferences Subcommittee

John Dannenhoffer presented news from the Conferences subcommittee and began with reminders of the three technical sessions at Aerospace Sciences being sponsored by the TC.

Steve Karman is our TC's "Topic Chair" (AIAA's term) for Aerospace Sciences 2007 for which abstracts are due 22 May 2006.

The TC is still in the process of getting to be an official sponsor of the CFD Conference in 2007. During 2005 we reviewed papers and chaired sessions in our topic area, so if we are going to do this work we should get the credit. The implications are that we would get to write our portion of the Call For Papers and our TC name would appear on the conference program.

The mesh generation "tutorial" (AIAA's term based on course duration) will be officially proposed to AIAA by month's end to be held in conjunction with the 2007 CFD Conference.

Membership

John Chawner presented the TC's membership activities. He began with a reminder that members should update their contact information at AIAA's web site in the My AIAA area. Failing that, they should reply to the email they've already been sent with corrections.

The TC's roster for the 2005-2006 year (May-Apr) totaled 26. Thomas Tannert has left SGI without a forwarding email address so he will be removed from the TC's roster.

Two nomination forms were received and distributed to the TC membership for review prior to the meeting. The nominees, Stephen Alter from NASA Langley and William Chan from NASA Ames, were accepted as TC members by a vote of the members present.

The TC had previously agreed to undertake an initiative to remove TC members who haven't participated in any TC activities during the previous 12-18 months. Members in this category are Costea, Hamilton, Rogers, Stodden, Tarakan, and Wurtzler. Each was sent an email inquiring about their intentions with respect to the TC and notice that lack of a reply would indicate a desire to be removed from the TC roster. Replies were received from Hamilton and Rogers who indicated that they should be removed as their situations have changed an made partcipation in the TC unlikely. No reply was received from the others. Therefore, the 6 members cited above will be removed from the TC's roster.

After all these changes, the TC's roster for 2006-2007 stands at 22.

After the TC meeting, the following persons indicated an interest in joining the TC: Hugh Thornburg (U Alabama Birmingham, PET program at WPAFB), Carl Ollivier-Gooch (U of British Columbia), Alan Shih (U Alabama Birmingham), Darin McKinnis (CEI), and Scott Imlay (Tecplot). They will be contacted by email with instructions on how to submit the nomination form.

Publications

Peter Cavallo volunteered to edit the TC's Year in Review article for the December 2006 issue of Aerospace America.

A limited number of TC brochures are still available for distribution by members at conferences they attend at which potential new members might be found. Email John Chawner if you want some.

General Business

The issue of the TC's placement within the Technical Activities Committee (TAC) was raised. We are currently placed within Structures, Design, and Test under Design and Manfucturing along with TCs on Computer Aided Enterprise Solutions, Design Engineering, and Survivability. Specifically, the issue of whether to request a move to either Aerospace Sciences or Information Systems was discussed. The director of Information Systems had suggested that we move to that directorate during the past 12 months. However, after discussion the TC decided that our TC was not a good fit with Information Systems. The TC agreed to pursue moving into Aerospace Sciences.

New Business

Based on the apparent interest in overset technology as evidenced by the relatively large number of technical papers on the topic at TC sponsored events over the last two years, the TC voted to consider creating a working group in that area. The action item is for the organizers of the bi-annual overset symposium to see whether their "membership" is interested in this type of arrangement.

Reno Reminders, 11 December 2005

The MVCE TC Meeting in Reno will be Tuesday night at 7:30 in room Teton2. The agenda will include:

  • Presentation of 2005 Best Paper Certificate of Merit.
  • Roster review - election of new members and dropping of inactive members.
  • Moving the TC from Structures, Design, & Test to another directorate (e.g. Aerospace Sciences, Information Systems).
  • Status/Plans for upcoming conferences.
  • Status/Plans for Meshing Short Course.
  • Unstructured Grid Consortium meeting will follow the conclusion of the MVCE TC meeting.

MVCE's three technical sessions in Reno are:

  • Tue a.m.: Session 78: Unstructured and Hybrid Grids: chaired by Dannenhoffer and Cavallo
  • Wed a.m.: Session 137: Geometry, Visualization, and Computational Environments: chaired by Chawner and Jones
  • Wed p.m.: Session 165: Overset and Adaptive Grids: chaired by Karman and Noack

TC Telecon, 20 October 2005

A TC telecon was held on 20 October 2005 beginning at 3:00 p.m. central time. Thanks are due to Val Watson and William Chan for providing the telephone and WebEx service. Participants included: Belie, Cavallo, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Godo, Horowitz, Jones, Karman, Michal, Noack, Thompson, Watson, Chan, and Alter.

General Business

An email from Frank Lu (FRANKLU@exchange.uta.edu), the new Editor-in-Chief of the AIAA Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics, had been forwarded to the TC membership in advance of the telecon. In his email, Frank asks for volunteers for the Editorial Advisory Board, reviewers of book proposals, and authors. There were no volunteers from our TC during the telecon. Anyone interested in volunteeering should contact Frank Lu directly.

An email from Stephen Brock, AIAA Student Programs, had been forwarded to the TC membership in advance of the telecon. In his email, Stephen solicits "TC support for choosing topics and developing RFPs for various graduate and undergraduate design competitions sponsored by AIAA." There was a brief discussion during the telecon of whether our TC's field of interest was applicable to the design competitions since they have traditionally involved design of aerospace vehicles and systems. In the end, the telecon participants decided not to submit any RFPs.

Membership

Email to TC member Thomas Tannert (SGI) is now returned with an error message indicating that he is no longer employed there. We have probably lost a TC member.

Contrary to previous reports, Steve Alter (NASA Langley) can join the TC. NASA Langley has decided that his topic area (structured gridding) is sufficiently different from Bill Jones' (unstructured meshing) that they can both participate. Steve's nomination form has been submitted and we expect to receive it in November.

William Chan (NASA Ames) has also submitted his nomination form to join the TC and transition into Val Watson's place. While we don't want to lose Val's participation, we welcome William's.

John Dannenhoffer proposed that we take action to drop from the TC members who have not participated in any TC events over the last 12-18 months to ensure that there are open spots for new active members. The telecon participants agreed with this plan. John Chawner will compile a list of inactive members to contact, determine their intentions, and drop them from the membership if appropriate.

Conferences Committee - by John Dannenhoffer

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2006

The TC is sponsoring three sessions with 8 papers each:

  • Tue a.m.: Session 78: Unstructured and Hybrid Grids: chaired by Dannenhoffer and Cavallo
  • Wed a.m.: Session 137: Geometry, Visualization, and Computational Environments: chaired by Chawner and Jones
  • Wed p.m.: Session 165: Overset and Adaptive Grids: chaired by Karman and Noack

It is recommended that the session chairs jointly email all authors in their respective sessions around the beginning of December to remind them of the deadlines and procedures for turning in their manuscripts and to obtain from the authors brief biographies for introductions.

We asked AIAA to schedule our TC meeting in Reno for Tuesday evening. As soon as we are informed of the schedule, the information will be shared with the TC.

CFD Conference 2007

The TC is seeking to become an official sponsor of the bi-annual CFD conference (so that our TC name appears in the CFP and other conference documentation). Our request has been submitted to AIAA and we are waiting for their reply.

Mesh Generation Short Course

An application has been submittted to Patricia Carr at AIAA for the TC to hold a Mesh Generation Short Course in conjunction with (i.e. the Sunday before) the CFD Conference in 2007 (Miami). We are waiting for their reply.

There is no hurry for contributors to submit their input before we receive approval from AIAA.

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2007

Steve Karman has volunteered to be the TC's Topic Chair for ASM 2007. He has already submitted our input for the CFP. Thanks, Steve.

Awards Committee - by Todd Michal

Nominations are still sought for the Best Paper award from presentations at the TC's sessions at ASM 2005 and the Fluids Conference in Toronto. To date only one nomination has been submitted. Around the beginning of November, the nominated paper(s) will be distributed for review to determine whether they are worthy of the Best Paper award, to be awarded at our TC meeting at ASM 2006.

Publications

We have many TC brochures still available for distribution by you at conferences or other events where you think candidate members for our TC might be congregating. Thanks to Steve Alter and Matt Godo for volunteering to take some to Supercomputing '05.

Matt Godo reported that our Year in Review article for 2005 has undergone some minor revisions at the request of AIAA, but otherwise is ready for publication in the December 2005 issue of Aerospace America.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group - by Todd Michal

The UGC entry at the International Meshing Roundtable's (www.imr.sandia.gov) poster session was honored with the annual Meshing Maestro award. This means that images from the UGC poster will appear on next year's IMR t-shirt. We are working with the IMR to see if we can get them to include the UGC's name and URL on the shirt also.

Final government approval was obtained to post the complete release of UGC API V2 on the TC web site including documentation, sample code, and header files.

Funding is being sought for ongoing upgrades, support, and bug fixes. The PET program is providing some funding to implement the API as a public domain library.

Now that the API has been fully released, a publicity campaign will begin to get the word out. Pointwise, the prime contractor on the develpoment of API V2, has drafted a press release that is currently waiting on Boeing approval.

The working group is considering whether to change the name of UGC API V2 to something a bit more noteworthy (like OpenGL, for example). This branding effort is ongoing.

The annual meeting of the UGC will be held in Reno immediately following the MVCE TC meeting.

New Business

No new business was discussed.

Adjournment

The telecon adjourned at 3:55 p.m. central time.

TC News, 11 September 2005

Year In Review Article

The Publications page has been updated with information about the TC's 2005 Year in Review article.

TC News, 16 August 2005

Year In Review Article

We need your help! Matt Godo (mng at ilight dot com) needs your input for the TC's Year in Review article ASAP. Timeline is as follows:

  • Input due to Matt: 24 August
  • Draft article posted to web site: 02 September
  • Article due to AIAA: 07 September

Aerospace Sciences Meeting 2006

The TC's sessions for the 2006 ASM (Reno) Meeting have been scheduled. They are:

  • Tue. a.m.: Unstructured and Hybrid Grids
  • Wed. a.m.: Geometry, Visualization, and Computational Environments
  • Wed. p.m.: Overset and Adaptive Grids

MVCE Brochures Available for Distribution

We have many TC brochures available for you to distribute at conferences you attend where there might be potential MVCE members. Just send me (jrc at pointwise dot com) and email and let me know how many you need.

TC News, 02 August 2005

The TC's Year in Review article for Aerospace America's December 2005 issue is due on 07 September. Please email your inputs, ideas, comments, suggestions, words, and pictures for this article to Matt Godo (mng at ilight dot com) ASAP.

A revised outline of the TC's proposed Grid Generation Short Course has been uploaded to the web site's Conferences Comm. page.. Please review it because it also lists TC members responsible for each topic area.

The Conferences page also includes an update on the TC's sessions at Aerospace Sciences 2006.

The Unstructured Grid Consortium has received full public release approval from the Air Force Research Lab for their UGC API V2 and the UGC portion of the web site has been updated accordingly. Our publicity campaign may now begin.

TC Meeting at AIAA CFD Conference, Toronto, 07 June 2005

(If the web site isn't working properly (broken links, missing documents, etc.), it's because it was reworked recently to reflect the TC's organization and to be an archive of all TC documents.)

The TC met on Tuesday 07 June 2005 in room Dockside 4 of the Westin Harbor Castle Hotel at the AIAA CFD Conference in Toronto. The meeting was called to order at approximately 7:00 p.m. Attending members were Cavallo, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Jones, Karman, and Noack. John Steinbrenner (Pointwise) participated on behalf of the UGC in place of Todd Michal who was unable to attend. Jeff Slotnick (Boeing) participated as a liaison from the Fluid Dynamics TC. Basil Hassan (Fluid Dynamics TC) arrived after the meeting adjourned. The meeting slides are available in PowerPoint and PDF formats.

General Business

The issue of our TC's placement within the Technical Activities Committee was raised again. As you are aware, our TC falls under Structures, Design, & Test. For the past two years, we have postponed discussion of whether to seek relocation to a directorate that's more in line with our TC's scope. Two years ago we postponed the issue simply because renaming the TC was enough to deal with by itself. This past January we postponed discussion of placement again so that we could determine whether or not the TC's new brochure would get us some visibility, regardless of our placement.

Since then, our TC's placement has been discussed at TAC meetings, we have been contacted by Information Systems folks regarding moving to their directorate, and Aerospace Sciences has indicated that we'd be welcome within their directorate.

The prevailing opinion among attending members was that we really don't belong in SD&T, and that Aerospace Sciences might be a better home than Info Systems.

Action Item, Chawner: Poll the TC membership whether to re-open the issue of TC placement. If the issue is re-opened, present to the TC descriptions of each TC in all the directorates so that an informed choice may be made regarding placement. This poll will be conducted by email.

Membership

Steve Alter (NASA Langley) expressed an interest in joining the TC. Unfortunately, NASA restricts TC involvement to one person per TC for each center. Since we already have one member from Langley, Steve has postsponed his nomination.

Several questions were asked about potential TC membership, including maximum number of TC members, international members, student members, associate members, and members' terms. Here are some facts about TC membership:

  • AIAA membership is mandatory for TC membership.
  • TC membership consists of 3 consecutive 1-year terms. (AIAA is making a distinction between that and a 3-year term.)
  • The TC year runs from May through April.
  • Inactive members may be dropped from the TC after their first or second year of membership.
  • TC membership can be extended beyond the 3-year total.
  • TC membership is limited to 35, but international and associate members don't count toward the 35.
  • Associate members are age 34 or younger and have no voting rights.

It was proposed that the TC contact NAFEMS ("the international association for the engineering analysis community", www.nafems.org) to make them aware of our TC, to solicit members, and to promote conferences. The proposal was approved and an introductory email was sent to NAFEMS.

Conferences

The TC's three sessions here in Toronto, their days, times, and session chairs, were reviewed.

We have begun the process of making our TC an "official" sponsor of the CFD Conference in 2007. "Official" means that our TC name will appear in the conference program and the sessions will be MVCE sessions, not CFD sessions.

The abstract deadline (10 June) for the Aerospace Sciences Meeting (ASM) 2006 has passed. Reviewers were assigned to abstracts and paper copies were distributed to reviewers at the meeting. All reviewers should have received their login IDs for the AIAA conference administration web site by now. Dannenhoffer wrote Abstract Review Guidelines (DOC) and they have been posted to this web site.

Publications

Brochure

All 500 copies of the TC's brochure were received at the conference site. Here's how they've been distributed so far:

  • Several small piles where left in the registration area for conference attendees to pick up.
  • Many more were distributed in the TC's two technical sessions on Wednesday.
  • Each member in attendance received a handful of brochures for distribution as they see fit.
  • A brochure and cover letter were mailed to the chairperson of each AIAA TC.
  • They were distributed at the bi-annual conference of the International Society of Grid Generation (www.engr.sjsu.edu/isgg/).
Action Item, Membership: If you will be attending a conference later this year at which our TC would benefit from visibility, let us know and we'll send you some brochures. For example, some will also be distributed later this year at the International Meshing Roundtable (www.imr.sandia.gov). Anyone going to SIGGRAPH?

Year in Review Article

Reminder: send your contributions to the Year in Review article to Matt Godo (mng at ilight dot com).

Awards

Nominations are currently being sought for the TC's Best Paper Award for 2005. Nomination forms were distributed to session chairs at the meeting. Nomination forms are also available on the TC web site. Action Item, Membership: Send your nominations to Todd Michal (instructions are on the form).

Unstructured Grid Consortium

Full release of the UGC API V2 documentation and software remains on hold pending paperwork from AFRL. Once that is obtained, the UGC's web site will be updated with the appropriate documents and a publicity campaign will begin. John Steinbrenner presented a paper about UGC API V2 in the TC's Wednesday afternoon technical session.

New Business

Dannenhoffer researched the possibility of the TC offering a one day short course in conjunction with an AIAA conference. He presented an outline of a Grid Generation Short Course (PDF). Changes were suggested and will be incorporated into the outline. Volunteers were sought to contribute to the various sections. The next step is to work through the AIAA to make this a reality, targeting the CFD Conference in 2007 (rumored to be in Miami).

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Update - 21 May 2005

The MVCE TC brochure design has been completed. Printing will begin soon and the brochures will be available for distribution beginning at the Fluid Dynamics, CFD, etc. Conferences in Toronto on 06-09 June. Theresa Benyo, Matt Godo, and Jay Horowitz have done a great job with this project! Here are JPEGs of the outside and inside of the brochure. Click on them for a larger image.
outside
inside

AIAA confirms that our TC meeting in Toronto will be on Tuesday 07 June 2005 at 1900-2200 hrs (7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.) in room Dockside 4.

Our TC's Best Paper Award recognizes the best paper presented at an MVCE TC sponsored or co-sponsored session each year. Nominations are currently sought for the best paper of 2005, beginning with January's Aerospace Sciences Meeting. Any member can nominate a paper for the Best Paper Award. The Nomination form can be found on the MVCE web site (see links on left side of page). Instructions for submitting the nomination are included on the form. Nomination forms will also be available at the CFD conference in Toronto next month.

WebEx Telecon - 12 May 2005

The special meeting, primarily for the purpose of choosing a dataset for the TC's brochure, was called to order at 3:09 pm. Attendees included: Watson, Chawner, Thompson, Dannenhoffer, Godo, Karman.

Thanks again to Val Watson for hosting this interactive meeting using WebEx (www.webex.com).

MVCE Tri-Fold Brochure

The meeting attendees voted unanimously to use the sprite_M4 dataset to create an image for the TC brochure. The SR-71 was chosen as the 2nd candidate by a 6-1 vote.

Suggestions for generating the image:

  • The image needs to be modified to show mesh on the left side so that the image is aligned with the text. Several suggestions were discussed including mesh on the fins, meshing the rocket surfaces, a cutting plane through the mesh near the base, and mesh on the symmetry plane. We decided to leave it up to Matt to determine the best way to represent the mesh.
  • Surface contours and the black and white shock structured were deemed sufficient to illustrate visualization. Addition of streamlines or other artificts might be too complicated for the image's planned usage.
  • Computational environments would be represented by some computers and/or VR setup that would be PhotoShopped in to the image.

Mechanical and production requirements:

  • Matt, Teresa, and Jay will work together on the image orientation (at what angle the rocket is shown), image format, image size, and other factors for integrating the image into the brochure.
  • One idea that can be explored is the use of PhotoShop or similar tool to blend together two images: one of the grid on the back end and one of the flow viz on the front. This might produce a better effect that selective display of grid on various components.
  • The printer has to complete the work by 20 May. Matt will be unavailable 16-18 May. Therefore, we have a very narrow window of opportunity to complete the design.
  • An image credit was deemed appropriate if it could be included discreetly in the design. Matt will provide the text.

Our $700 funding request was approved in its entirety by AIAA.

Conferences

John Dannenhoffer reports that the abstract deadline for the 2006 Aerospace Sciences Meeting has been extended to 10 June. To date, the TC has received 13 abstracts: 11 meshing, 2, visualization, 0 computational environments. ENCOURAGE authors to take advantage of the deadline extension to submit papers, especially in visualization and computational environments.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 3:25 p.m.

Update - 06 May 2005

Candidate Datasets for Brochure

Matt Godo has generated using FIELDVIEW a fantastic set of candidate images for the TC's brochure. Check 'em out, pick your favorite, and prepare to vote at the next TC telecon on which one we'll use in the brochure. (Click on the thumbnail to see the larger image.)


 

TC Meeting in Toronto - Tuesday at 7pm

I've been told - unofficially - that our TC meeting in Toronto will be Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. Room to be determined.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group

We were over-enthusiastic about AFRL's release of the UGC API documentation. We have to wait to begin our publicity effort for the USAF to clarify their Intellectual Property Rights to the documentation and software to ensure that we have permission to distribution the data and, if so, what markings need to be applied to the materials.