New functionality: Release 2.1

Faster engineering, securer data handling, convenient modeling and flexible licensing are now at hand with the new upgrade of the FRIENDSHIP-Framework. Release 2.1 includes new functionalities, operational refinement and strategies for efficient design, which help you to perform better and to create superior products. Functionalities that boost your design contribute to an overall slimmer design process. A design process that raises the bar for efficiency, user-friendliness and applicability—and that strengthens your and your designs' competitive performance.

In brief, the FRIENDSHIP-Framework 2.1 provides

• Faster engineering through remote computing

• Safer file handling through enhanced data management

• Individualized work through the Configuration Wizard

• Boosted surface design through hands-on point manipulation and validation

• Flexible operation through extended licensing modes

• Fully-parametric design of turbomachinery blades

• A number of additional solutions for quicker, better and handier design

Clearly, each application yields major savings in time, cost and design resources. Yet their combination will boost your design process to top performance and superior products.

What does that mean, what do you gain?

Remote computing or distributed computing, as it is also referred to, is a technology that allows you to effectively include available hardware resources in your design process, thereby speeding up the overall computational time and consequently minimizing total development time. How does it work? The idea behind remote or distributed computing is to split and dispatch open computational tasks among idle hardware resources. These may be remote computers, far workstations or distant office hardware. Remote computing can employ virtually all available processing units. The distribution and result management  is handled through Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which connects remote computers. Generally, the computation time of processes supported through remote computing is reduced by the factor of additional powerful hardware components. Especially for computationally intensive tasks, the enormous relief and the savings in time and cost this technology yields are overwhelming.

Applied to the FRIENDSHIP-Framework, this technology allows the parallel execution of integrated tools on your local computer or on remote machines. You can use available multi-core processors (CPU) to execute multiple instances of the extern tools that are integrated into the FRIENDSHIP-Framework. You may well start the external tools on remote computers through the SSH protocol. With respect to large operations like variant calculation or hydrodynamic optimization, distributed computing streamlines and consolidates your workflow massively.

• Enhanced data management

Handling and storing data is a key challenge in software development. Release 2.1 answers to this quest with few smart solutions, which are designed to make you feel relaxed while operating the FRIENDSHIP-Framework.
With release 2.1, the current project file is updated and kept consistent to the project state. That helps managing system failures. Crash recovery for projects is a new functionality, which will recover your project to its latest state in case of the odd system collapse.
The incremental saving of project data additionally eases your work flow as it spares you long saving procedures, which can be quite straining especially when operating large projects. For such another development is a real asset: the FRIENDSHIP-Framework now runs on reduced memory. This is an obvious plus especially if you sample numerous designs in one project. Enhanced data management also means that projects are altogether loaded faster, which again reduces idle time significantly.  

A new development for faster data exchange is the Configuration Wizard. This feature supports the smart and easy set up of input data for external tools, which  run within the FRIENDSHIP-Framework. The content and order of each wizard page can be configured by the provider of the corresponding definition and be customized to individual preferences accordingly. The Configuration Wizard translates the concept of the FRIENDSHIP-Framework as the designer's configurable workbench meaningfully into your  benefit.

• Extended license modes 

Matching the requirements of project engineering, release 2.1 comes with extended licensing modes. Now the FRIENDSHIP-Framework can be licensed with different temporal and functional scope. Float licenses are a flexible solution and cost saving alternative for mobile and group work. Licensed for one or more workstations, the FRIENDSHIP-Framework can be run on several work stations. In comparison to regular licenses, which are hardware-bound and which allow the installation and use of the software on the very registered computer, the float license enables the software use on several computers, even mobile devices, depending on the license scope. The FRIENDSHIP-Framework may now also be rented for a limited time frame. The rent license is particularly attractive for temporary project based work.

• Point manipulation

 Point management and the general visualization of geometry are easier and more convenient in release 2.1. For instance, the principal plane can be made visible even if the user does not operate in main view. Here, he can create and handle points along the displayed plane. Point creation is handier, work steps are consolidated and altogether faster. This is true also for the establishment of curves such as B-Spline and NURBS, which can now be generated through simple mouse operation. Using the menu bar is nonetheless available. Set your preferences and personalize the FRIENDSHIP-Framework, make it work the way you want it to work: facilitating an excellent engineering environment of utmost comfort is our prime principle and guides our development. Hence, a number of extra improvements have been added, which will surely make your operation of the FRIENDSHIP-Framework more convenient, more relaxed, more efficient.

• Special functionality for turbomachinery

 The Stream Section, a new curve type for the design of efficient blade surfaces like compressor blades, allows fully-parametric section design in length-preserving and angle-preserving systems. It facilitates the fully-parametric modeling of stream surfaces in comprehensive and convenient steps.

• General

The User Guide is now available as a comprehensive handbook in printer-friendly format (PDF). It provides a consolidated overview of the scale and scope of functionality of the FRIENDSHIP-Framework and helps you get a read and too a quick start by showcasing numerous exemplary applications  for hull design and turbomachinery components. Access the latest User Guide here.

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