Subject: [SUMMARY] FEM stuff

From: [email-masked] (L.G. "Ted" Stern)
Date: 09 Jan 1995 19:47:07 GMT

I posted a message a few weeks ago asking for information about data formats
that would be suitable for FEM-type info and materials databases.  I looked
around a bit more, got some replies, and here is a summary:

1) IBM has a tool called Data Explorer (DX) with a published format that
supports a lot of what I was looking for.  DX also has Lloyd Treinish working
on it (see the CDF, netCDF, and HDF bibliographies).  Unfortunately, there is
not yet complete implementation of Treinish's and DX's formats in a PD
package, though HDF supports some of the features.  Here are some DX URL's:

	http://www-i.almaden.ibm.com/dx/
	http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Visualization/vis.html

2) HDF suppports some unstructured formats.  Disadvantage (to me) is that I
haven't seen sufficient programming examples for C or Fortran.  I would very
much appreciate seeing some HDF examples supporting data on unstructured
grids, in C, C++, or Fortran (hopefully all 3).  I'd also like to see how
people get their data into AVS or PV-WAVE (the local vis. tools I have to work
with).

3) netCDF can theoretically be pushed into supporting unstructured grids with
home-brewed constructs.  Lloyd Treinish sent me a document about how DX
handles this.  I will forward it to anyone who's interested.  I would also be
interested in seeing how other people do this.

4) For materials databases I was referred to STEP.  Here are some URL's:

	gopher://elib.cme.nist.gov/11/step
	gopher://elib.cme.nist.gov/11/step/part104
	gopher://elib.cme.nist.gov/11/step/part45
	http://www.igd.fhg.de/www/igd-a2/hyperstep/hyperstep-home.html

Hope this helps somebody,

--
	-- Ted
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 Ted Stern (206) 685-8068                        Dept. of Applied Math, FS-20
 [email-masked]                      University of Washington
 http://www.amath.washington.edu/~stern/         Seattle, WA  98195
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