TetrUSS is a suite of computer programs used for fluid dynamics and aerodynamics analysis and design. The TetrUSS system was developed at NASA Langley Research Center during the 1990s to bring the state-of-the-art in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to a higher level of utility, and is geared towards novices and experts alike. The software, originally developed for NASA internal applications, has gradually evolved into an efficient and versatile CFD tool used by engineers and scientists throughout the nation. TetrUSS has been employed in major NASA research programs such as High Speed Research / High Speed Civil Transport, Hyper-X, Abrupt Wing Stall, Mars Scout, Joint Strike Fighter, and many other smaller projects (some recent applications of Mac OS X TetrUSS are shown here). The software is widely used in other government organizations, the aerospace industry, academia, and non-aerospace industries such as automotive, bio-medical, and civil engineering. TetrUSS was the recipient of the prestigious NASA Software of the Year award in 1996.
TetrUSS for Mac OS X is a native Mac OS X port of the original TetrUSS CFD software, and was developed by NASA Langley Research Center and the Air Force Research Laboratory. This CFD system consists of GridToolCocoa (GTC), VGRID OpenGL, POSTGRID OpenGL, USM3D, and various tools and utilities. While TetrUSS for Mac OS X is heavily based on the original SGI software (and thus will be familiar to existing TetrUSS users), numerous technologies in Mac OS X have been leveraged to improve performance, productivity, and ease of use.
TetrUSS v010804 requires Mac OS X 10.3.x (version 092803 is still available for OS X 10.2.x). When installed, TetrUSS consists of native Cocoa applications and command line executables. Graphics applications take advantage of Quartz rendering and native OpenGL acceleration on Mac OS X. Every component of Mac OS X TetrUSS can be launched from the UNIX command line or through the Mac OS X Aqua interface, allowing users to choose whichever approach (or combination) works best for them.
More info and download link here.
What they really need to do is update it for the G5 with the new IBM compilers. Then is should really scream.
Isn’t this available for the PC? Just curious…I could not find it. This must be ONE of the few departments that got G5’s to test.
The real message is not in the text then: Macs in high-end environments, government environments, scientific and computing intensive environments are COMMON. Common enough that NASA ported it to Mac for themselves and the industry as a whole.
People always price Apple higher than other platforms, but they only
compare price tags and not capability, reliability or replaceability.
Replaceability?!?! Yep, meaning one Apple computer can replace two
computers at a researchers desk: The Sun/SGI machine used for research and computing and the PC used for day-to-day work.