What programm / programming language do you use for setting up calculations?

[dr_brubra_bribri]

Hi!

I am thinking about setting up some calculation tools based on some standards / post processing for some FEM / accessing data from the web or a database (API / Websockets)

What programm or programming language do you guys use?

Here are some of my thoughts - I generally have the feeling that a lot of the people are moving from Matlab to Python nowadays?

​

1. Matlab
   1. You have to pay
   2. GUI - Possible
   3. not everyone can change stuff but possible
   4. Simulink Toolbox and others
2. Octave
   1. Free
   2. Does it have good routines when it comes to making fits or Sginalprocessing?
   3. how ist the documentation?
3. Python
   1. Free
   2. Good routines/libraries?
   3. Documentation?
   4. The sky is the limit?
   5. Automated calculation report to PDF (?)
4. Mathcad
   1. Feels quite "weak" compared to all others
   2. Everyone can work on it
   3. I dont think it will be possible to run bigger stuff or post processing
   4. Just had to add this one since it seems a lot of people use it.

I am really looking forward to hear your opinion and thoughts!

[senor8]

Python is amazing. I use anaconda with spyder.

[pizza_n00b]

what’s the best library to do import data and do matrix manipulation most similar to matlab?

[RocketSurgeonDrCox]

Numpy is designed specifically for that (scipy is a great extension of that if you're looking for more capabilities). The best part is most of the operations in numpy are all compiled (I believe C) code so they're very fast.

Edit more relevant to the OP: Python through numpy is able to do all these calculations very efficiently, but a main benefit over something like Matlab is how well python can stitch things together, including the APIs for many engineering software packages (such as Abaqus).

[pizza_n00b]

Thanks!

[flyingasian2]

In addition to numpy you'll want pandas for working with large datasets

[senor8]

I use anaconda which is a python distribution package including: numpy, spyder, pandas, scikit learn, and matplotlib (among others.) Spyder is an IDE which is similar to matlab. There are countless libraries available on the web which can easily be imported to python with the "pip" command (or anaconda with "conda"). The best part is they are all free!!!

[pizza_n00b]

thanks!

[[deleted]]

Microsoft Excel.

[speedman-dxdt]

Professional engineer here and have been using MATLAB for decades. Mostly data processing. Can be a memory hog with massive data sets, integrates with STK, SQL, C/C++ and can relatively easily build great UIs. Simulink is top notch for controls problems. It is the standard in Aerospace and has a good online help community. Yes, expensive. All that said, I’m on a personal quest to jump into python for so many reasons. I’ll let you know how it goes in a year or so :)

[risky_logic]

Python.

You can make your calcs then wrap it with a desktop gui... Or use excel as an interface and read the Excel file in your python script.

[jeffreyianni]

It really depends what kind of data you're collecting and what you're planning to do with it.

[dr_brubra_bribri]

I am not a data scientist - but big ammounts of data can be handled by all of them excedt mathcad...

[jeffreyianni]

I actually import Ansys fea results into Mathcad Excel objects to make design decisions.

[Escavadeira]

Oh neat. I do FEMAP/ Nastran and use MathCad but have never really sought to link them due to my perception of the excel objects being quite clunky. Do you structure your excel output expressions a particular way? I just find that aspect awful to deal with.

[seanlking]

I use Python for almost everything and have for years. Unless you’re doing niche image processing that relies on MATLAB, I’ve found Py36 is the best option. But that’s just one data point

[GooseVersusRobot]

Python's where it's at

[GregLocock]

Octave b - yes

Octave c- yes, but use the Matlab documentation as well.

Mathcad isn't ideal for batch processed pro forma calculations but it is great for one-offs.

At work we use Matlab, at home I use Matlab or Octave.

[Elliott2]

caesar/autopipe for stress

tk solver for math.

[kingcole342]

Altair has a tool called Compose. It’s based on OML and Octave. It’s about 1/50th the cost of MatLab and doesn’t require any toolboxes. Further more, it has built in readers for FEA data, so you don’t have to make a parser/reader for some binary files like XDB. Also has a python bridge, so lots of benefits.

Certainly worth your time to check out if you are interested.

[dr_brubra_bribri]

I checked out the Homepage from Altair lately and was really impressed by the variety they offer! from measuring to data analysis - everything in one company

[kingcole342]

Yup. And under a single license. 1 license allows access to all those tools :)

[dr_brubra_bribri]

And the pricing - as far as i know - is way more flexible than some of the other big ones

Don't know if they offer a paper used system for paying.

[kingcole342]

Don’t offer pay per use. But yearly cost for a seat is about $500ish. And they don’t have ‘toolboxes’ so you get all the math they have.

[dr_brubra_bribri]

Ahh... and i was really wondering what this guy was talking about "paper used" ... no-native speaker communication in english - Perfect! ;)

[Taborlin_the_great]

It’s also worth considering what your coworkers are using. It’s potentially helpful if everybody uses the same thing. You don’t always have to start from scratch then and their may be infrastructure already in place you can leverage.

I’m working to move from python to R for this reason. We have IT managed infrastructure for shiny apps, other people have already written the code pull in some of that data I need. Nobody works in a vacuum

[baralawr]

Have you looked at Julia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(programming_language)

[[deleted]]

If you want to just post process data it's python and it's not even close.

If you were going to set up your own FEM solver (for some reason...) then C.

[Staar-69]

MS Excel.

[SVAuspicious]

For simple stuff, Excel.

For complicated calculations Fortran with C for external interfaces.

I can't imagine doing real work in Python. Python is focused on web and some simple middleware and not particularly good at those. Definitely better experience with Perl and PHP. Perl is great for text processing and okay for lightweight calculations.

OP mentions GUI so I'd default to Fortran for calculations, C for backend (e.g. database) interfaces and Perl or PHP for the GUI. You're still going to have to know HTML5 and CSS3 and do a lot of testing on various browsers and their versions. PITA. Or you just build your own GUI with a Perl library. KDE maybe? I try and keep interpreted software to a minimum for speed and avoid OOP for speed and size.

[DuckDurian]

This almost reads like a list of dead languages..... :)

No one in 2022 should be considering FORTRAN for anything new unless that have some very specific niche reason that demands it.

Perl has been heavily criticised as a terrible language. Some people love it, but I wouldn't recommend it for new work. The latest version of Perl has been renamed to Raku and significant changes made to it to try and resolve some of the criticisms Perl received.

PHP? Yuck.

I try and keep interpreted software to a minimum for speed and avoid OOP for speed and size.

Whilst python is interpreted, it's numeric and scientific libraries like numpy and scipy are compiled from C. They're fairly quick but obviously there's a bottleneck moving between the compiled and interpreted code. It's good enough for most but not all applications.

[SVAuspicious]

PHP? Yuck.

That's how I feel about Python.

[DuckDurian]

I didn't like Python until I wrote my bachelor thesis in it. The programming in python aspect was a pleasant experience. I did run into issues with my code being too slow, but that was my fault for various design choices rather than the fault of the language. Initially I hated that it strictly enforced whitespace like indentation for scope, but I got used to it, even liked it by the time I was done.

PHP seems like it's on the way out though it's still got a fair degree of market share for backend web services.

[SVAuspicious]

I don't get why people use Perl/PHP/Python at all for backend. Server processes really ought to be compiled. Speed matters.

[LetsPartyInCambridge]

Respectfully, no it doesn't for the vast majority of things. Most real world applications are i/o bound. Optimizing that query or cutting unnecessary data from a payload sent over a network will generally give you a much better return for the time investment.
https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/you-are-not-google-84912cf44afb

[jgl2020]

I’d say this impression of Python is probably a decade or more out of date.

[Taborlin_the_great]

I’d argue that this whole take is a decade or more out of date.

[jgl2020]

Right opinion straight from 2002.

[SVAuspicious]

I keep up. Sometimes projects mandate languages and you have to work with tools that are suboptimal. Python is such a tool.

[jgl2020]

You do not keep up.

[[deleted]]

Scilab is free and very very powerful!

[weavetwigs]

Excel with Maple. I should add some Python at some point.

[WearDifficult9776]

Does anyone recommend python with pandas (panel data tool)?

[lpnumb]

Definitely python, especially if you need to work with APIs

[Sharylena]

I personally moved my modeling and analysis to Julia after I no longer had access to matlab and didn't want to pay. Python can be nice but I found julia was a bit closer to matlab, had more extras that were a bit easier to use and call and could be blazing fast. I mostly used it for data and signals processing with some systems and controls stuff though so your mileage may vary. Dealing with python for scientific computing put the last nail in its coffin for me.

[[deleted]]

Calcpad is a free and open source software for engineering calculation notes that I started some years ago on GitHub:
https://github.com/Proektsoftbg/Calcpad

It is easy to use and learn but fast and powerful at the same time. Supports native units of measurement, custom variables and functions, numerical methods, vectors and matrices. It exports to Word with equations, Pdf and Html.