[Gmsh] gmsh + Elmer ?

[raback at csc.fi]

Dear gmsh developers,

I'm writing to you because we frequently bump into Elmer users that also
use gmsh. Elmer is a multiphysical finite element software package, see
http://www.csc.fi/elmer. It's also given out under GPL. Even though we
have some mesh generation tools of our own they do not fit more advanced
needs. Therefore the users of Elmer have frequently also started to use
gmsh. Also we not put significant amount of work to the Elmer preprocessor
(ElmerFront and ElmerGrid) as most of our resources go to the development
of ElmerSolver which is among the most versatile finite element solvers.

Recently I was approached by one long time Elmer user from the U.S. who
wants to push the use of Elmer in his company and promised some money for
developing Elmer (in the range of upper class car). However, hes needs
where mostly in the preprocessing part and therefore he suggested that we
team up with you to provide the solution for them. I'm dubious whether
there really would be a solution for the amount of money but I still
thought I would contact your team. We are even currently providing mesh
import from gmsh format but then the command file needs to be edited by
hand which is of course quite difficult for complicated cases.

Even if the above would not provide a feasible case there could be other
options for example in EU-level projects where a preprocessor and a solver
would make an ideal team. Also in getting national funding it may be
beneficial to show international colloboration, at least here in Finland.

Apart from developing some own software products we also try to support
the open source ideology generally. We see that the future in
computational science should rather be based on open source community
softwares than on commercial software products. Particularly the large
scale computing is quite expensive using commercial software and this is
an important point for us being the national supercomputing center in
Finland.

Some time ago we organized an OpenFOAM seminar which attracted 67 persons
and we are thinking of continuing with these kinds of venues also in the
future. Gmsh came to mind also in this context. Have you organized
seminars or workshops and in what terms could you imagine doing it in
Finland (Espoo), say next autumn?

Best regards,
Peter

D.Sc. Peter Råback  Development Manager, Scientific Software Development
raback at csc.fi       CSC, the Finnish IT center for science
                    Keilaranta 14              fax:   +358-9-457 2302
                    P.O. Box 405               tel:   +358-9-457 2080
                    FIN-02101 Espoo, Finland   mob:   +358-50-3305225