Visual Dynamics

Download

A compiled package for your platform, a Python install, or the repository itself.

This is an alpha release. It has been checked against known cases, not yet against a broad set of tests, and the numbers it produces are to be verified by independent means before anything depends on them. The application shows this notice the first time each new version opens and asks you to acknowledge it. Projects are saved as .vdyn files, and Engineering Sciences Common Data Format (.h5) files are imported and exported for exchanging data with other tools. While Visual Dynamics is an alpha the .vdyn format may still change. The promise that a later version opens every earlier file starts with the first release that is not an alpha.

Compiled packages

Download, open, and the application runs; there is nothing else to install. Choose one of these unless you already work in Python.

macOS Apple silicon · .dmg macOS Intel · .dmg Windows 64-bit installer · .exe Linux Portable x86_64 · .AppImage

Every release is also on the releases page, with release notes and a SHA256SUMS file beside the downloads. Run shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS in the folder holding them to check them.

Example projects

Complete projects with the work already done, to open on the first day. The plate and the quadcopter have one project per workflow, each with its report generated. Every run in them is synthetic: a virtual test article was driven through the same controller used for real tests, and the photographs are renders of the geometry. The BARC is a finite element model built from planes, and again from solid bricks with its removable component as a model of its own, all solved. The Frame-Wing is five models built from solids and meshed into bricks: the frame, each wing, and the frame with each wing bolted on.

The plate, as the app draws it The plate six projects · modal, random, shock, sine, system ID, transient · 42 MB The quadcopter, as the app draws it The quadcopter four projects · modal, random, shock, transient · 272 MB The BARC, as the app draws it The BARC two projects · from planes, and from bricks with its removable component, solved · 12 MB The Frame-Wing, the frame with its thick wing, as the app draws it The Frame-Wing one project · the frame, two wings, two assemblies, solid models solved · 91 MB

The figures on the Examples page and the guide's screenshots come from the plate. The quadcopter runs the same workflows on a model with the node count of a real test article. The BARC is the documentation's finite element workflow carried out, checked against the finite element models shared on the SEM Dynamic Substructuring Focus Group wiki; the Frame-Wing is its solid workflow, checked against the wiki's measured frequencies and shared models. Unzip the file, then use File → Open. They are .vdyn files, and they are cut again whenever a release changes the format.

Python installation

The desktop application and the scripting API are one package, so installing it gives you both: the API to drive an analysis from a script or notebook, and the same application the installers above provide. 

pip install visualdynamics

Python 3.12 or newer. python -m visualdynamics opens the application, and import visualdynamics is the API the documentation describes.

Contributor installation

To work on Visual Dynamics itself (fix something, try a branch, run the test suite), clone the repository and install it in place, so your edits take effect without reinstalling: 

git clone [email protected]:visualdynamics/visualdynamics.git
cd visualdynamics
pip install -e .

That is the SSH remote, which uses your GitHub SSH key. Over HTTPS, https://github.com/visualdynamics/visualdynamics.git clones the same thing.

To run what is on main without cloning it, for example to get a fix before it is released, pip can install from the repository directly. Add @ and a branch, tag or commit to choose a particular one: 

pip install git+ssh://[email protected]/visualdynamics/visualdynamics.git

There is nothing to compile; git and Python 3.12 or newer are all it needs. Bug reports are very welcome and I try to fix them promptly. For a larger change, open an issue first or write to me.

What you need

The 3-D views need working OpenGL, which any ordinary desktop has. The application needs no account and makes no network request on its own; File → Check for Updates… checks for a newer version only when you choose it. The privacy policy has the details.

Code signing

The macOS images are signed with the author's Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The Windows installer is not signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen asks before running it; every release includes a SHA256SUMS file to check it against. The code signing policy says what is signed, who approves it, the status of Windows signing, and what the program sends over the network.