Meshing, Visualization, and Computational Environments
Technical Committee

  21 May 2005

TC News: May 2004 - April 2005

WebEx Telecon - 19 April 2005

The meeting was called to order at 3:07 pm. Attendees included: Belie, Benyo, Brentner, Chawner, Dannenhoffer, Eiseman, Horowitz, Michal, Noack, Watson.

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

General Business

No news of a general nature was reported.

Membership Activities

AIAA confirmed the nomination of Peter Cavallo to the TC.

Conferences Committee

CFD Conference, Toronto, June 2005

  • Sessions and chairs for Toronto were posted to the TC web site on 11 April. The full conference agenda including authors and paper titles is available on AIAA.org.
  • Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Find out how to make our TC an "official" sponsor of the 2007 CFD conference.
  • A TC meeting is planned for Toronto. Date, time, and place will be determined by AIAA in "a week or two".

Aerospace Sciences, Reno, January 2006

  • Abstracts due 06 May. We expect the deadline will be extended.
  • Our CFP was emailed to visualization contacts within IEEE. There is no evidence that it generated any abstract submissions yet.

Awards Committee

  • 2nd draft of Awards Committee Procedure document was reviewed.
  • AIAA does not require official oversight of our awards as long as we don't present the award at an AIAA awards event. However, we should ask our TC Director to review the document.
  • A vote was called to accept or reject the procedures document. Acceptance was unanimous. The final document is here (PDF).
  • Action Item, Michal: Begin working on Best Paper award for 2005 including Reno papers.
  • Action Item, Chawner: Forward awards procedure document to TC Group director.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group

  • The Air Force has approved the UGC API and its supporting documentation for public release.
  • Action Item, Michal: Post the API documentation to a prominent location on the UGC portion of the TC web site and initiate PR campaign.

Publications Activities

Year in Review Article

  • Nothing to report

MVCE Tri-Fold Brochure

  • 2nd draft of text and layout was reviewed.
  • No substantive changes were identified.
  • One potential dataset was available for review - this SR-71. Several others will be available within a week or two for our review and selection.
  • Action Item, Godo: Provide images of other sample data sets ASAP.
  • Regarding choice of dataset and image, someone remarked that any nice color graphic would make our brochure stand out from other literature distributed at AIAA conferences which is mostly text. Also, an image that is simply "good enough" will have to be chosen so we can have the piece produced in time for Toronto.
  • Production estimate: 500 pieces, color printed, 2-sided, and folded will take 2 weeks and cost $400. Therefore, design deadline is 23 May.
  • Graphic artist assistance for final touch-up is an extra $138.
  • Creating several small posters out of the inside of the brochure (for use on the signs outside the TC's meeting rooms at conferences) was discussed and generally agreed to be a good idea.
  • Action Item, Benyo & Horowitz: Verify graphic artist expense and impact on production time. Get cost estimate on poster production.
  • AIAA does not require formal approval over this piece, even if it uses the AIAA logo, but they would like to see it in advance.
  • AIAA logos art is available here in a variety of formats and styles.
  • Action Item, Chawner: Check with AIAA again with respect to printing budget.

New Business

  • TC sponsored short course - Dannenhoffer inquired whether the idea of the short courses in the TC's areas of expertise has been pursued. It had not. Dannenhoffer volunteered to contact AIAA and find out the ground rules for short courses and will report back at the TC meeting in Toronto. In the interim, TC members are urged to email their ideas/outlines for potential short courses. General agreement was that the courses should not be focused on commercial software packages.
  • AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communications (www.aiaa.org/jacic) - Dannenhoffer is currently on the advisory board for this journal but is being considered for an associate editor position. If so, there will be an opening for someone to be on the advisory board if anyone's interested. Also, this journal is a very good fit for our TC's papers and we should promote it more. We can promote the journal generally in TC technical sessions. Session chairs can also encourage authors to submit to JACIC during the speaker's breakfasts. Finally, we can be more proactive in urging authors to submit their work. Dannenhoffer will correspond with JACIC editor, Lyle Long, to get sample materials and info to aid in the journal's promotion.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:55 p.m.

Update - 11 April 2005


The next TC meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday 19 April at 3:00 p.m. central time. Val Watson will host the meeting again via WebEx.

The 2nd draft of the Awards Committee procedures document is available for your review.
awards-committee-draft2.pdf
awards-committee-draft2-withchanges.pdf

Room for a TC meeting at the CFD Conference in Toronto has been requested for Tuesday evening. Date and time will follow after it has been confirmed.

MVCE Chaired Sessions at the CFD Conference in Toronto
  • Wed. a.m., Session 83-CFD-17, "Overset Grids, chaired by Noack and Chawner
  • Wed. p.m., Session 102-CFD-20, "Geometry and Grid Generation, chaired by Dannenhoffer and Michal
  • Thu. a.m., Session 116-CFD-23, "Adaptive Grids", chaired by Jones and Karman

WebEx Telecon - 21 March 2005

Thank you to Val Watson for hosting our interactive telecon using WebEx.


The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. central time. Attendees included: Belie, Benyo, Chawner, Godo, Horowitz, Jones, Karman, Michal, Noack, Sekar, Thompson, and Watson.

General Information
Nothing to report.

Membership
  • Email to Andreas Wierse at Vircinity is bouncing, so we may have lost a member (perhaps only temporarily). If anyone knows Andreas' whereabouts, please let us know.
  • We received a nomination form from Peter Cavallo at CRAFT Tech. After reviewing his nomination and a brief discussion, Peter's membership in the TC was confirmed unanimously by oral ballot.
  • Action Item, Chawner: Inform Cavallo and AIAA of his nomination.

Conferences Committee
  • CFD Conference, June, Toronto:
    • We currently do not have a definitive list of sessions, papers/authors, and session chairs but some notifications have been made. Action Item, Dannenhoffer: Provide a list of papers, sessions, and chairs for posting to the TC web site.
    • A TC meeting is planned for Toronto, date/time/room TBD.
  • Aerospace Sciences, Jan. 2006, Reno
    • Abstracts due 06 May 2005.
    • Peter Eiseman provided a couple of contacts within the IEEE Visualization community and they will be contacted to see if we might get some more visualization abstracts. Action Item, Chawner: Email the IEEE contacts.

Awards Committee
  • The draft procedures document was reviewed and discussed. Revisions were made to how the Committee's members are chosen and the review process for the papers.
  • A modified version of the procedures document will be prepared and posted to the TC web site for further review. Action Item, Michal: Send the updated document when it is complete.
  • Action Item, Chawner: Contact AIAA and find out what level of oversight, if any, they require/desire over our awards.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group
  • The lack of AFRL approval for public release of the UGC API documentation has all publicity initiatives on-hold. Action Item, Michal: Ask AFRL for their best estimate of a release date.
  • John Steinbrenner from Pointwise will be presenting a paper on the UGC API at the AIAA Meeting in Toronto this June.
  • The API remains available to members of the UGC Steering Committee through a password-protected web site. Contact Todd Michal for details.
Publications
  • Year in Review Article
    • Your suggestions for the TC's Year in Review article should be emailed to Matt Godo. The article will draw from those compiled suggestions.
  • MVCE Brochure
    • Teresa Benyo and Jay Horowitz presented their first draft of the TC brochure and solicited comments from the membership.
    • Several suggestions for the text were made and will be incorporated into the next version of the brochure.
    • The image to be used was discussed at length. The basic requirements for the image are that it be external flow over an aerospace vehicle that's relatively long to fit the space available in the brochure. Plus, the particular vehicle has to be either "new" technology or "classic" technology. Matt Godo volunteered to draw from his collection of data sets and provide several for the TC's consideration.
    • The first planned forum for distribution of the brochure is this summer's conference in Toronto.
    • Since the main purpose of the brochure is to get the word out about the TC, we should not let selection of a "cool" image unecessarily delay production of the brochure.
    • Action Items:
      • Benyo/Horowitz - Incorporate text changes into next version of brochure. Deliver next draft for posting to the TC web site.
      • Benyo/Horowitz - Get cost/time estimates for production including variations with quantity, file formats supported, paper stock, etc.
      • Benyo/Horowitz - Create a timeline for design and production of the brochure, working backward from the Toronto meeting.
      • Godo - Compile sample data sets for image production and deliver for posting to the TC web site.
      • Chawner - Check with AIAA regarding a good quality image file of their logo.
      • Chawner - Check with AIAA regarding whether or not they require approval of the brochure before we use it.
New Business
No new issues were raised.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at approximately 4:25 p.m. central time. The overall group opinion was that using WebEx was a positive experience.

Update - 10 March 2005


Awards Committee Document
The latest procedures document for the new Awards Committee is now available in PDF format here (.pdf).

Draft of MVCE Brochure
The first draft of the MVCE brochure is now available in PDF format here (.pdf).

Contacts at IEEE Visualization

Peter Eiseman was able to get us contact info for folks at IEEE who might be inclined to submit papers to our sessions.
David S. Ebert, Purdue University
  • ebertd@purdue.edu
  • Tel. 765-494-9064
  • Fax 765-494-6951
Charles D. Hansen, University of Utah
  • hansen@cs.utah.edu
  • Tel. 801-581-3154

UGC Update
The UGC portion of the web site has been updated including, among other things, minutes from the Reno meeting.

Update - 06 March 2005


Revised Awards Committee Document
The procedures document for the new Awards Committee has been updated. The new version is available here (.doc).

First Draft of MVCE Brochure
The first draft of the MVCE brochure is available in PowerPoint (.ppt) format here.

TC Telecon - 17 February 2005


Summary of Action Items
  • All Members: Consider AIAA's request for information about our TC's contributions to society and be prepared to discuss them at the next TC meeting.
  • Benyo: Investigate TC's within the Info Systems Group in light of Lyle Long's suggestion to move MVCE from Structures, Design, and Test to Info Systems.
  • Chawner: Find out exactly what has to happen to move a TC from one group to another. PARTIAL ANSWER: TAC Organization is reviewed by New Initiatives Subcommittee (NIS) in even years. However, an informal review of the organization has already begun.
  • Chawner: Reply to Dr. Long and let him know what our plans are regarding his suggestion. DONE
  • All Members: Contribute ideas for the Year in Review article to Matt Godo.
  • Chawner: Ask AIAA about the time between us submitting a request for funds to print our tri-fold brochures to the actual payment of funds. ANSWER: Processed and mailed within a week of receipt.
  • Eiseman: Get names and email address of contact in the IEEE Visualization groups.
  • All Members: Submit papers in the topic areas of visualization and computational environments to Reno 2006. Encourage colleagues to do the same.
  • All Members: Review the draft Awards Committee policy document and prepare comments for discussion at next TC meeting.

Call to Order
The TC met by teleconference beginning at 3:00 p.m. (central). There were 12 participants: Benyo, Brentner, Chawner, Eiseman, Godo, Horowitz, Jones, Karman, Noack, Sekar, Tannert, Watson.

Recognition for David Edwards
Following up on a suggestion made by Jay Horowitz at the Reno meeting, the AIAA mailed to former TC Chairperson David Edwards a plaque expressing our thanks for his service to the TC and AIAA.

Membership Increase
The TC has two new members who sat in on our TC meeting in Reno: Dr. Ralph Noack from the Army Research Lab and Dr. Balu Sekar from the Air Force Research Lab. Welcome to MVCE!

Reno TAC Meeting Minutes
The AIAA has made available the minutes from the Technical Activities Committee (TAC) meeting in Reno. Read them here (.doc).

Contributions to Society
The AIAA has asked us to contribute a write up of our TC's contributions to society. See the parameters for this write-up here (.ppt). A very brief brainstorming session during the telecon raised the topic of visualization and its contributions to medical imaging, weather visualization, and air traffic control.

Action Item, All Members: Read the request from AIAA, think about our TC's contributions to society, draft them following the format in AIAA's PPT file, and be prepared to discuss them at the next TC meeting.


Lyle Long from Penn State has the following requests:

  • MVCE TC members should consider the new AIAA Journal of Aerospace Computing, Information, and Communications (www.aiaa.org/jacic) as a forum for their work. Dr. Long is JACIC's editor.

  • MVCE TC members should consider contributing papers to the Infotech@Aerospace Conference coming up this September. Abstracts are due by 21 February. Conference information is on the AIAA web site but here's a brief overview: Infotech@Aerospace premiers AIAA’s first, full spectrum technical forum devoted to information-enabled aerospace systems, capabilities, applications and technologies. Intended to serve as the Institute’s cornerstone event in addressing 21st century aerospace opportunities and issues, it provides an opportunity for interaction among experts from a wide range of disciplines including intelligent systems, unmanned and robotic platforms and systems of all types, enabling computing technologies hardware and software, sensors for situation awareness, advanced communications, digital avionics, network centric environments and operations, enterprise architectures and other contemporary disciplines shaping the future of aerospace. Experts from the research, design, development, manufacturing, test and operations communities will share their observations, thoughts and ideas on a broad array of topics germane to aeronautical, space and related robotic applications for military, civil, scientific or commercial purposes.

  • Dr. Long suggests that the MVCE TC consider relocating from the Structures Design and Test Group to the Information Systems Group within the TAC. The issue of relocating the TC was discussed during our Reno meeting and postponed for another year as it had been the previous year when we undertook the TC renaming project.

  • Action Items:
    • Benyo: Investigate the TCs within the Info Systems Group to gauge whether Info Systems might indeed be a better fit for MVCE.
    • Chawner: Work with the TAC chain of command to find out exactly what's involved in relocating a TC.
    • Chawner: Reply to Dr. Long and inform him of our plans.

Year in Review Article
  • Intelligent Light has graciously volunteered to take the lead on editing the TC's Year in Review article.
  • Matt Godo from IL will be the main point of contact.
  • Email contributions for the article directly to Matt (his purposefully obfuscated email address is mng at ilight dot com). He'll compile them and that compilation will be maintained on the TC web site. Your contributions can be be anything: notes of something interesting you saw at a show, a technical paper, a URL.
  • Action Item, All Members: Contribute ideas for the Year in Review article.

Publicity - MVCE Brochure
  • Teresa Benyo and Jay Horowitz are leading the effort to publish a tri-fold brochure that explains our TC and its mission for two purposes:
    • to attract new, active members
    • to inform other TCs of our name and scope change and hopefully have them forward conference papers to our TC's sessions
  • First use of the brochure is targeting the summer Fluids, Applied Aero, and CFD conferences in Toronto.
  • The first draft of the brochure will be available on the TC web site for your review before 28 Feb.
  • The issue of printing cost was raised. AIAA does have funds available to cover printing cost and has supplied us with the request form.
  • Action Item, Chawner: inquire about the time frame from funds request to payment.

Conferences Committee
  • Fluids, Applied Aero, CFD Conferences - June 2005, Toronto
    • Permission was given by the general chair on 2/17 to notify authors of paper acceptance.
    • However, acceptance and rejection have apparently been available on the conference web site for at least a week or two prior to 2/17. Sessions have also been created.
    • Final papers due 23 April.
  • Aerospace Sciences - January 2006, Reno
    • Abstracts are still coming in (abstract deadline 06 May)
    • HOWEVER, "not many" abstracts have been submitted in the topic areas of visualization and computational environments. Is this a problem? YES.
    • Peter Eiseman suggested that we correspond with the IEEE Visualization group to let them know about our TC and conferences.
    • Action Item, Eiseman: Get names and email addresses of points of contact at IEEE so that we can contact them.
    • Action Item: All Members: If you work in the visualization or environments area, consider submitting a paper for Reno 2006. Encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Awards Committee
  • A draft policy document is available for review here (.doc).
  • Highlights:
    • borrowed liberally from Fluids TC
    • creates Best Paper and Service Awards,
    • requires at least 3 members on the committee (to be chosen)
  • Action Item, All Members: Review the draft awards committee document and prepare comments for discussion at next TC meeting.

Unstructured Grid Consortium Working Group
  • There has been no activity on the publicity initiatives discussed in Reno because AFRL has not yet released the UGC API documentation for public distribution.
  • Technical Activities:
    • Alan Shih (Univ. Alabama Birmingham) will implement a subset of the Grid Tool Kit (GTK) using the UGC API.
    • Boeing Commercial Aircraft is considering an implementation of the UGC API in AGPS via a Java wrapper.

Call for New Business
No new business was raised.

Web Site Membership Page
TC members are reminded to submit a list of their technical interests, an interesting image that illustrates their work, and a head & shoulders photograph of themselves for the web site's membership page.

Next TC Meeting
Val Watson volunteered to host the next TC meeting using the WebEx on-line conferencing service.
Adjournment
The telecon ended at approximately 3:55 p.m.

TC Meeting in Reno - 11 January 2005


Call to Order
The TC met on Tuesday evening 11 January 2005 in Reno during the Aerospace Sciences Meeting. Attendance was not taken.

Reminder of Reno 2005 Events
  • Session 131-MVC-1 "Grid Generation"
    • Wed 12 Jan, 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
    • N6
  • Session 163-MVC-2 "Computational Environments & Visualization"
    • Wed 12 Jan, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
    • Room N6

Roster Review for 2005-2006
Each TC member for the May 2005 - April 2006 year was emailed a copy of their contact information as AIAA has it. Please reply by the end of January with any corrections. No reply will imply that everything is correct. This information has to be submitted to AIAA by 15 February. Current membership totals 23.

We received no nomination forms for new members by the deadline but we are aware of at least one potential new member. John Chawner will work with AIAA to find out how to make him official.


Officer Voting for 2005-2006
Only two nominations were received for TC officers:
  • Chairperson - John Chawner
  • Vice-Chairperson - John Dannenhoffer

There were no additional nominations or write-in candidates at the meeting. An oral vote was taken and both candidates were elected.


Volunteer to Write 2005 Year in Review Article
We sought a volunteer to write the 2005 Year in Review article that will appear in the December issue of Aerospace America. Steve Legensky from Intelligent Light volunteered. Thank you Steve.

TC Activities at CFD Conference in Toronto
The TC will sponsor three 8-paper sessions at the AIAA CFD Conference to be held in Toronto on 06-09 June.

Volunteers were sought for session chair duties.

Not a single paper in the area of visualization was submitted.


TC Activities at Reno 2006
John Dannenhoffer leads our TC's Conferences Subcommittee and volunteered to be our Technical Chair for Reno 2006. AIAA's planning meeting for Reno 2006 was held Monday 10 January. The Call For Papers is available with a deadline of 06 May 2005. Much of the planning is currently up-in-the-air due to the new concept of "tracks". The following is taken verbatim from the General Chair:

"The new AIAA Strategic Plan calls for increasing membership by involving more engineers & scientists in technical meetings. The Aerospace Sciences Meeting has always had a strong technical content on the science side, but has been somewhat weaker on the applied one. The Director and Deputies of the Aerospace Sciences Group would like to see a new emphasis on the applied side while maintaining the traditional strong science content. In order to do this, we will be developing some specific Vehicle-Segment Tracks, Program Committee Tracks, and Technology/Methodology Tracks to provide additional applied content."

More details will follow as the plan for Reno 2006 firms up.


Publicity Initiative
It was proposed that the TC write and distribute a brief document describing its scope and highlighting relevant technologies.

The TC's recent renaming and change of scope are the motivation for writing this document. Its two main purposes would be:

  • To make sure that other TCs know about us so that technical papers within our scope may be redirected to us.
  • To attract new, active members.

A couple of mechanisms were cited for distributing this article.

  • Put a PDF on the TC's web site and email a link to other TC chairpersons.
  • Distribute paper copies at AIAA and other conferences.
  • Publish it in Aerospace America

The TC voted to accept this proposal. Teresa Benyo and Jay Horowitz volunteered to lead the effort to write this document.


Awards Subcommittee
The preceeding discussion of promoting and publicizing the TC led to a related idea. The TC could give an annual "Best Paper Award" from all papers written for TC-sponsored sessions in conferences throughout the year. This award could be published along with a photo of the recipient in Aerospace America, in the AIAA News pages in the back.

All present agreed that this idea should be pursued. A vote was taken to establish an Awards Subcommittee. Todd Michal volunteered to lead this subcommittee.

TC Placement
The issue our TC's placement within the Technical Activities Committee (TAC) was discussed. This issue was originally raised a year ago during the process of renaming the TC but was postponed.

By way of review, we currently fall under Structures, Design, and Test (SDT) as shown below:

  • Engr & Tech Mgmt
  • Aircraft Syst & Oper
  • Space & Missiles
  • Aero Sciences
  • Info Systems
  • Structures Design & Test
    • Design & Manufacturing
      • Computer Aided Enterprise Solutions
      • Design Engineering
      • MVCE
      • Survivability
    • Materials & Structures
    • Test

The reason for considering change is that the scope of the TC and the nature of its membership might be considered more properly aligned with Aerospace Sciences or even Information Systems.

The downside of being under SDT is that we may not be attracting the right kind of membership. Another problem is that the Year in Review articles in Aerospace America are organized according to the TAC arrangement which puts us in an "odd" place.

A vote was taken on whether to pursue a move out of SDT, to postpone the issue for another year, or drop the matter entirely. The vote was to postpone the matter for another year.

New Business
It was recommended that the TC through AIAA write a letter of thanks to David Edwards, recently retired, for his past service to the TC and AIAA. This recommendation was approved by those in attendance. John Chawner will work with AIAA on this letter.
Adjournment
The TC meeting was adjourned and immediately followed by a meeting of the Unstructured Grid Consortium, a working group within our TC.

08 December 2004

Chair and Vice Chair Nominations
The call for nominations for TC Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson was issued in an email on 11 November. Nominations were accepted through 01 December. Nominees for the two positions are:
  • Chairperson: John Chawner
  • Vice-Chairperson: John Dannenhoffer
This should simplify the voting process at our TC meeting in Reno.
TC Meeting in Reno
Our TC's annual meeting will be held in Reno on Tuesday night. Room and time are still being finalized. As soon as I get the final schedule from AIAA I'll pass it along to you.

Tentative Agenda:

  • Vote on Officers for 2005-2006
  • Confirmation of TC Roster for 2005/2006
  • Seek Volunteer for Year In Review Article Editor for 2005
  • Status of TC Activities at CFD Conference in Toronto, June 2005
  • Vote on Publicity Initiative (see news from 01 Oct 2004)
  • Vote on Whether to Request a Change of TC's Position in TAC (see news from 01 Oct 2004)

The Unstructured Grid Consortium will meet immediately following the TC meeting in the same room.

New Conference: InfoTech@Aerospace
From Dr. Lyle N. Long: In September 2005 there will be a new, annual AIAA conference called InfoTech@Aerospace, that will include all aspects of information systems for aerospace. A Call for Papers is attached. More information can be found at: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=230&lumeetingid=1246 Papers presented at this conference may also be suitable for the new journal, JACIC (www.aiaa.org/jacic/). We are also considering having a special issue of JACIC in 2005 devoted to UAV systems. The December 2004 issue is devoted to Intelligent Systems.
Reno 2006 Technical Chair for Reno 2006
John Dannenhoffer volunteered to be our TC's Technical Chair for the 2006 Aerospace Sciences Meeting. Thank you, John.
AIAA Award Nominations
Know any AIAA members who deserve to have their achievements recognized? If so, nominate them for one of the following awards. Information about the specific awards is available on AIAA's web site.

The AIAA is accepting nominations for the following awards through 01 February.

  • Aerospace Communications Award
  • Aerospace Guidance, Navigation, and Control Award
  • Aerospace Power Systems Award
  • Aircraft Design Award
  • Aircraft Operations Award
  • Chanute Flight Award
  • Command, Control, Communications, & Intelligence Award
  • de Florez Award for Flight Simulation
  • Energy Systems
  • George M. Low Space Transportation Award
  • Hap Arnold Award for Excellence in Aeronautical Program Management
  • Mechanics and Control of Flight Award
  • Missile Systems Award
  • Mulitdisciplinary Design Optimization Award
  • Otto C. Winzen Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Piper General Aviation Award
  • Space Automation and Robotics Award
  • Space Science Award
  • Space Operations and Support Award
  • Space Systems Award
  • von Braun Award for Excellence in Space Program Management
  • Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics

Nominations for this award are due by 15 January.

  • Robert J. Collier Trophy Award

Nominations for this award are due by 01 January.

  • J. Leland Atwood Award

Nominations for these awards are due by 01 February.

  • Daniel Guggenheim Medal
  • Elmer A. Sperry Award
  • William Littlewood Memorial Lecture
Membership Page on Web Site
Just a reminder to send
  1. a brief listing of your professional interests,
  2. a picture illustrating those interests, and
  3. (optional) a photo of yourself
for our web site's Membership page, www.aiaa.orc/tc/mvce/membership.htm

15 November 2004

Reno Agenda
Our TC's annual meeting will be held in Reno on Tuesday night (exact time and room TBA).

The Unstructured Grid Consortium will meet immediately following the TC meeting in the same room.

Our TC's two sessions are Wednesday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Call for Nominations
We are accepting nominations for the position of TC Chairperson and Vice-chairperson for the 12 month period beginning May 2005. Please email your nominations to jrc@pointwise.com. You may nominate yourself.

Nominations will be accepted through 01 December.

Voting for these two positions will take place at our meeting in Reno.

Volunteer Needed for Technical Chair for Reno 2006
We need someone to volunteer to be our TC's Technical Chair for the 2006 Aerospace Sciences meeting. As Tech Chair you will be responsible for drafting the Call for Papers, managing submitted abstracts via the AIAA's on-line system, arranging reviewers, creating technical sessions from the accepted abstracts, and assigning session chairs.

If you want to volunteer, please email me at jrc@pointwise.com. The first planning meeting for Reno 2006 will be in Reno this January.

CFD Conference Abstracts
We've been unable to get a good handle on exactly how many abstracts have been submitted for next summer's CFD conference in Toronto because the Tech Chair is in the midst of a job change. It looks like we may get a session-full of abstracts related to overset grid technology. As soon as we know more, we'll let you know.
Award Nominations
The AIAA is seeking nominations of members for their annual awards. For more information on the various awards and past honorees go to the AIAA web site and click on Inside AIAA then Honors & Awards. For a nomination form, contact me.
Membership Page on Web Site
Just a reminder to send
  1. a brief listing of your professional interests,
  2. a picture illustrating those interests, and
  3. (optional) a photo of yourself
for our web site's Membership page, www.aiaa.orc/tc/mvce/membership.htm

01 October 2004

Reno 2005 Technical Sessions
Here are the details on the two sessions our TC is hosting at Reno this January. Please note that both sessions are on *Wednesday*.

Session 131-MVC-1 "Grid Generation"
Chair: Steve Karman, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chair: John Chawner, Pointwise, Inc.

0800
AIAA-2005-0921
A Summary of the 2004 Overset Symposium on Composite Grids and Solution Technology
R. Noack, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
J. Slotnick, The Boeing Company, Huntington Beach, CA

0830
AIAA-2005-0922
Enabling Grid-Generation Technologies Developed for the STS- 107 Accident Investigation
S. Alter, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA

0900
AIAA-2005-0923
Mesh Generation Using Unstructured Computational Meshes and Elliptic Partial Differential Equation Smoothing
S. Karman, W. Anderson and M. Sahasrabudhe, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN
0930
AIAA-2005-0924
Further Extension and Validation of a Parallel Unstructured Mesh Adaptation Package
P. Cavallo, Combustion Research and Flow Technology Inc., Pipersville, PA;
M. Grismer, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
1000
AIAA-2005-0925
Surface Reconstruction and Grid Generation Using Reverse Engineering Approach
T. Yu, National Chi Nan University, Puli, Taiwan (ROC);
A. Shih, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

1030
AIAA-2005-0926
Deformation of Unstructured Viscous Grids
D. Kholodar and R. Cummings, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, CO;
S. Pirzadeh, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA;
S. Morton, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, CO

1100
AIAA-2005-0927
Adaptive Mesh Refinement Using General Elements
V. Senguttuvan, S. Chalasani, E. Luke and D. Thompson, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS

1130
AIAA-2005-0928
An Adaptive, Nonisotropic Cartesian Grid for Fluid Dynamics
D. Mott, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC

Session 163-MVC-2 "Computational Environments & Visualization"
Chair: J. DANNENHOFFER, Syracuse University, Manlius, NY
Chair: T. BENYO, NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH
1300
AIAA-2005-1151
Serious Colorful! Dynamics in Fire Simulation
D. Barrero, J. Hardy, J. Abanto and M. Reggio, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

1330
AIAA-2005-1152
Automated Extraction of Secondary Flow Features
S. Dorney, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
R. Haimes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

1400
AIAA-2005-1153
A Collaborative Engineering Design Data Repository
J. Dannenhoffer and D. Rice, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

1430
AIAA-2005-1154
Project Integration Architecture: Inter- Application Propagation of Information
W. Jones and T. Benyo, NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

1500
AIAA-2005-1155
Checking CFD Interfaces in a Multi- Disciplinary Workflow with an XML/CGNS Compiler
M. Poinot, E. Montreuil and E. Henaux, ONERA, Chatillon, France

1530
AIAA-2005-1156
Building Blocks Towards VR- Based Flow Sculpting
W. Dawes, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Great Britain

1600
AIAA-2005-1157
Comgeom: Geometry Representation and Data Sharing for Analysis of Launch Vehicles
P. Gage, V. Hawke, L. Huynh, K. McGuire, C. Tang and A. Te, Eloret Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA

1630
AIAA-2005-1158
Object Orientated Design of an Advancing Layer Mesh Generator
S. Munday, Aircraft Research Association Ltd., Bedford, Bedfordshire, Great Britain

Abstracts Due 15 October for Summer 2005 CFD Conference
Just a reminder that abstracts are due by 15 October for the Summer 2005 CFD conference to be held in Toronto. Our TC has been promised as many technical sessions as we can fill so encourage your colleagues to submit their papers!
Officer Elections
My two-year term as chair and Jay Horowitz's two-year term as vice-chair both expire in May 2005 so it is time to begin the process of electing new officers.

However, we do have a couple of "hanging chads" in our election process. As you know, in order to comply with AIAA regulations for TCs we adopted a charter earlier this year. Regarding officers it says "The TC will have two officers: Chairperson, and Vice Chairperson. The term of the officers shall be two years... The Vice Chairperson is the Chairperson-elect and is elected one year prior to the end of the current Chairperson’s term."

The first problem is that we haven't elected officers using this model before. Jay Horowitz and I were both elected two years ago and now both our two year terms are coming to an end. The second problem has to do with resolving the obvious conflict of "two year" terms and the fact that the vice chair (chair-elect) is elected "one year" prior to the end of the chair's term. The latter means that the vice chair's term would only be one year, not two.

I don't think that a TC of our size needs to rigorously formalize the election process. But we do need to resolve the obvious problems in our charter.

Therefore, I propose that we amend the charter by striking the following sentence from Paragraph II. "OFFICERS" - "The Vice Chairperson is the Chairperson-elect and is elected one year prior to the end of the current Chairperson’s term." All that would remain is that we have two officers (chair and vice-chair) with two year terms. Every two years we elect new officers. Nothing in the charter specifies any particular succession.

I will issue a Call for Votes after you've had a chance to think this over.

New TC Publicity Initiative
I propose that the TC begin a new and (hopefully) small project to publicize our TC's mission to related to TCs. One benefit this increased awareness would be that other TCs might forward to our TC technical papers that they have historically published. For example, the Fluids TC was very happy to offload meshing and visualization papers to us for the CFD conference in 2005.
Issue: TC Position within TAC
As you may recall from our TC meeting in Reno last year, our TC falls under the Structures, Design, and Test directorate within the Technical Activites Committee (TAC). During the process of renaming the TC we discussed whether or not the TC would be better represented if it fell under the Aerospace Sciences directorate. We postponed that decision in order to focus on the renaming.

First, a brief overview of the TAC showing the "directorates". Further detail has been added to both Aerospace Sciences and Structures, Design, and Test but not the other directorates. (Hopefully, this matches what you can find on AIAA.org - click on Inside AIAA, then Technical Committees.)

  • Technical Activities Committee (TAC)
    • Engineering & Technology Mgmt
    • Aircraft & Air Transportation Systems & Operations
    • Propulsion & Energy
    • Space and Missile Systems
    • Aerospace Sciences
      • Fluid Sciences
        • Aeroacoustics
        • Aerodynamic Measurement Technology
        • Atmospheric & Space Environment
        • Fluid Dynamics
        • Plasmadynamics
        • Thermophysics
      • Flight Sciences
        • Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems
        • Applied Aerodynamics
        • Astrodynamics
        • Atmosphereic Flight Mechanics
        • Guidance, Navigation & Control
    • Information & Communications Systems
    • Structures, Design, & Test
      • Design & Manufacturing
        • Computer Adided Enterprise Solutions
        • Design Engineering
        • Meshing Visualization and Computational Environments
        • Survivability
      • Materials & Structures
        • Adaptive Structures
        • Materials
        • Structural Dynamics
        • Structures
      • Test
        • Modeling & Simulation
        • Ground Testing

The general opinion of TC membership was that our current mission statement and membership was more inclined to the fluids side of things as opposed to structures. More specficially, a lot of the technology represented by the TC concerns CFD and its applications.

I propose that a vote be taken during the TC meeting in Reno regarding whether or not to petition the TAC to move our TC from Structures, Design, and Test to Aerospace Sciences.

In advance of that vote I recommend that the membership review the TC organization and scope of each TC on the AIAA web site (www.aiaa.org, click on Inside AIAA, click on Technical Committees).

TC Meeting in Reno
The TC will meet in Reno - the date, time, and location have not yet been scheduled but we are going to request either Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

Tentative Agenda:

  • Election of New Officers for May 2005 - Apr 2006
  • Vote on Whether to Pursue Publicity Initiative (see above)
  • Vote on Whether to Request Realignment within TAC (see above)

Also, the business portion of the TC meeting will be followed immediately by a meeting of the Unstructured Grid Consortium (a working group within our TC). Details to follow.

Nominations for TC Membership - Due 01 November
The AIAA TC Nomination Period is now open for nominations for terms beginning 01 May 2005. Nominations (people can nominate themselves) are available on the AIAA web site (see Inside AIAA, then Technical Committees).

If you know of someone who would be a good addition to our TC, please point them toward the nomination form on AIAA's web site. Also, since our TC has recently been rebranded, you might consider promoting this to folks you know on other TCs who might be a better fit for ours.

Nominations are due by 01 November 2004.

Membership Page on Web Site
Just a reminder to send
  1. a brief listing of your professional interests,
  2. a picture illustrating those interests, and
  3. (optional) a photo of yourself
for our web site's Membership page, www.aiaa.orc/tc/mvce/membership.htm

28 August 2004

2004 YiR Article - Final Draft
The final draft of our TC's article for the December "Year In Review" issue of Aerospace America has been emailed to the membership for final review. One document is the article itself while the other shows the accompanying photo and caption.

It's not too late to suggest changes or additions. The final article is due to AIAA on Friday 03 September. Just send your input to jrc@pointwise.com no later than Wednesday 01 Sepetember.

Nominations for TC Membership - Due 01 November
The AIAA TC Nomination Period is now open for nominations for terms beginning 01 May 2005. Nomination forms (people can nominate themselves) are available on the AIAA web site, www.aiaa.org (see Inside AIAA, then Technical Committees).

If you know of someone who would be a good addition to our TC, please point them toward the nomination form on AIAA's web site. Also, since our TC has recently been rebranded, you might consider promoting this to folks you know on other TCs who might be a better fit for ours.

Nominations are due by 01 November 2004.

Reno Technical Sessions
To repeat information previously announced, our TC is sponsoring two technical sessions at Reno. They are:
  • Wednesday AM - Grid Generation - 8 papers
  • Wednesday PM - Computational Environments & Visualization - 8 papers
Membership Page on Web Site
Just a reminder to send
  1. a brief listing of your professional interests,
  2. a picture illustrating those interests, and
  3. (optional) a photo of yourself
for our web site's Membership page, www.aiaa.orc/tc/mvce/membership.htm

05 August 2004

URGENT - Your Help Is Needed!

Our 600-word article for Aerospace America's "2004 Year in Review" issue is due on 03 September 2004. I need your inputs ASAP because I want to present a draft of the article to the TC no later than 20 August. Please email your contributions to jrc@pointwise.com.

I am interested in anything you have to offer: a 1-line "look at this", a URL, a pointer to a technical paper, some interesting stuff you've been working on... ANYTHING. Including pictures.

Here's what AIAA asked for: "Committee reports should cover the most important developments in a particular technology or system. Breakthroughs and setbacks that have occurred during the past year, the reasons they are important, and their impact on the aerospace community should be included. How industry trends, such as mergers and buyouts, have affected your discipline should be addressed as well." They also ask for "a minimum of two captioned photographs" (emphasis mine).

For your reference, here's what our TC wrote last year: Year in Review, 2003 [PDF]

20 July 2004

URL of TC's Web Site Updated
AIAA has updated the URL of our web site to reflect our name change. The new URL is http://www.aiaa.org/tc/mvce. The old URL will automatically redirect to the new URL.
UGC Web Site On-line
The Unstructured Grid Consortium's web site is now included as part of our TC's web site. See the link on the left side of this page. As you recall, the UGC is now a Working Group of our TC.

06 July 2004

Reno Abstract Reviews On-Going
The review process is on-going (and nearing completion) for the 21 abstracts submitted for our TC's two technical sessions at January's Reno meeting. John Dannenhoffer represents our TC as Technical Chair for Reno and is coordinating the process.
2004 Year In Review Article for Aerospace America
The deadline for submitting our TC's year-in-review article for the December issue of Aerospace America is 03 September. John Chawner will author this year's article and you can see the rather sparse set of notes for the article via the link on the left side of this web page. I need your help. Several of you have already volunteered to contribute articles and a picture or two but we need more. Even if your contribution is an idea of something to write about, please email it to jrc@pointwise.com.
Abstracts Due 15 Oct for Next Summer's Meetings
As you no doubt recall, our TC is sponsoring technical sessions at next summer's meetings (Fluid Dynamics, CFD, Applied Aero, et al) in Toronto. This is the first time (in my recollection) that our TC has been involved with these meetings. Specifically, we're working with Helen Reed who's the Technical Program Chair for the CFD Conference. The abstract deadline is 15 October.

21 May 2004

21 Abstracts Received for Reno
John Dannenhoffer, our TC's technical chair for the 43rd Aerospace Science Meeting, reports that we've received 21 abstracts for our two sessions. He'll be contacting reviewers soon - and there is still time to volunteer to be a reviewer.
No TC Meeting in Portland
There will not be a TC meeting at the 34th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit.
TC's Web Site Membership Page
As discussed during February's telecon, the Membership page on the TC's web site is undergoing renovation. Why?
  • Listing everyone's interests in the TC can serve to attract new, active members.
  • Listing everyone's affiliation gives credit to the organization that's sponsoring your membership in the TC.
  • Our web site is way too dull and a few pictures will help spice it up.

As you can see from the web page, each member's listing includes:

  • name
  • affiliation, and link to that web site
  • a photo
  • a brief write-up of your interests as they relate to the TC
  • an image that exemplifies those interests

Therefore, consider this a solicitation for your information. Let me know if the URL currently listed next to your name is accurate or whether your department or group has a web site that you'd rather link to. There are no precise specifications on image size or format but don't be surprised if I resize your image to fit.

2004 YIR
Just a reminder that topics for the TC's 2004 Year In Review article should be emailed to John Chawner, jrc@pointwise.com.