Skip to main content
C
CP_93338034-Participant
4-Participant
September 22, 2023
Question

I built a prototype for my vision of a cloud based CAE tool

  • September 22, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1924 views

Hello! I've been a MathCAD user for 5-6 years now, but this last subscription cycle I told myself would be the last. Instead, I wrote a prototype application that just barely meet my needs, but shows an example for what cloud CAE could be.

 

I would love to see PTC adopt something like this into their offerings, implementing storage, global variables, syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and hooks into Onshape.

 

The graphical nature of MathCAD is neat no doubt, but I think the future is plain text with a super simple syntax.

 

It's free, so please check it out if you're interested!

https://fa.rad.cm

2 replies

T
21-Topaz II
terryhendicott21-Topaz II
21-Topaz II
September 22, 2023

Hi,

There is nothing new under the sun.  Scilab and Matlab have an interface that is similar but a little better because the answers appear in the command window so they can be associated with what generated them.  The interface that disassociates the answers in a separate window off to one side is hard to use.

Cheers

Terry

C
CP_93338034-ParticipantAuthor
4-Participant
September 22, 2023

I'd say this application is more of a prototype of the language itself rather than the interface. There are several things it would require to be fully featured, and the goal is to make this an executable rather than a web app.

 

The biggest thing I'm demonstrating is the syntax and handling of units that Matlab nor any other language currently offers.

 

I'm working on an output style that repeat the input code line before the output, while also styling based on keyword, variable, function, etc.

C
Cornel19-Tanzanite
19-Tanzanite
September 22, 2023

Another application with an interface through which you have to write code...but no thank you. Code, Code, Code...everywhere. 

 

Do you like to write code or to have a graphical interface where you don't have to write code (and when you have to write code that code to be intuitive, so you can understand it)? 

 

Would you like to work in Python, Matlab, Scilab, R, or to write code in plain text, etc, to do the things you do in Mathcad?

C
CP_93338034-ParticipantAuthor
4-Participant
September 22, 2023

It's certainly not an interface for anyone, but I do see domain specific languages becoming more common for us engineers that don't want to deal with traditional programing languages. None of those languages you mentioned handle units as humanly as the Math.js library does.

 

There are many benefits to plain text programming that MathCAD, Maple Flow, and SMath can't offer:

  • Open source non-subscription licensing
  • Git-like versioning or revision control
  • Portability
  • Collaborative editing (several solutions already exist for real-time plain text code collaboration)

My prototype is of course lacking in syntax highlighting, auto-complete, or any of the common features you would find in a modern IDE. But ideally you could use any IDE to write scripts and view the output with an offline executable.

Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement