Working 3D Panel Method
 

Greetings!

I have completed 3D Panel Method for potential flow about arbitrary bodies. It stil lacks efficient preprocesor, wake rollup routine and boundary layer calculation. Program is made in Matlab and I would like to make it commercial. Since it is made in Matlab under educational licence on my Faculty, how much do I owe to Mathworks??? Do I have to pay 1900$ for commercial version of Matlab or there is another solution, like for Mathworks to have a share in profit? Afterall the price of program wouldn't be high, about 10$ or 50$. What do you think would be the fairest price for the program since it took me more than one year to make it work?

Thank you all in advance! Daniel

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

Hello Daniel, I have similar program for 2D lifting flow around airfoil, I use it to calculate perfomance of a wind turbine. Results is very good. I wright it in Fortran and C using OpenGL for graphics. I think we can work together for more complete commercial program. I would like to hear your opinion for this, my mail is:: partenov at yahoo

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

Hi

Note that Tornado is free .. http://www.ave.kth.se/divisions/aero...o/tornado.html

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

> Since it is made in Matlab under educational licence on my Faculty, how
: much do I owe to Mathworks???

It is not really a question of money - when you release your code the university will have almost certainly violated the license. They will be held responsible by Mathworks and not you. What happens to you will depend on your relationship with the university.

Writing important code in Matlab is not sensible because it is locked to a proprietary scripting language controlled by a single commercial company. On the other hand, releasing your code so that it is fully useable by Matlab users may well be a wise commercial move.

A solution that would address both your licensing concerns and future development concerns is to translate the number crunching parts into a "proper" compiled language (e.g. C, Fortran) and the controlling parts into an open scripting language (e.g. Python, Lua, Ruby). When sorted, supporting an additional interface for Matlab scripting should take little time and effort.

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

Thank you for response!

Tornado is vortex lattice method, that means that wing is approximated with its middle surface, thus thickness is neglected. Mine, however, is fully 3D method. With proper preprocessor true aircraft form can be solved for potential flow. I don't know who build Tornado or is he/they getting any money for it, this is the reason I'm asking you for your opinions. Since I worked on it for over a year I would feel a bit naive to give it freely since I am a student and don't have a yob :)

Daniel

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

Hi! Thank you for your response!

I never had any experience with this kind of stuff so i'm not sure I'm following you right.

>>"It is not really a question of money - when you release your code the university will have almost certainly violated the license. They will be held responsible by Mathworks and not you. What happens to you will depend on your relationship with the university."<< -does this mean that I cannot release my code under any way with educational license and that I have to by commercial version???? I'm not sure I understand the rest of your response.

Thank you! Daniel

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

> I never had any experience with this kind of stuff so i'm not sure I'm
: following you right.

The matlab scripting environment is for writing short scripts that invoke large procedures written in "proper" computer languages and invoked via a matlab interface. Writing large procedures in matlab that you intend to support as a commercial product is bonkers. To understand why you need to know about programming and supporting commercial programs. What makes sense for you in your current position only you can say.

> Does this mean that I cannot release my code under any way with
: educational license and that I have to by commercial version????

An educational license is restricted to education and a commercial license allows commercial exploitation. In addition, if you are paid as a researcher (you did not explain your relationship) then the code will be owned by the employer (the university) and not the employee (you).

Re: Working 3D Panel Method *NM*
 

Re: Working 3D Panel Method
 

You don't have to pay anyone for anything. What you've done is just writing some lines that can be read by textpad or similar. You don't need to have Matlab to do that.

Few questions arise:

1)To sell your product you have to register it or, in example, if i buy it from you i can sell it by myself. Registration is not so cheap as 100$ so...

2)A lot of similar, even if not complete, free codes already exists. Tornado is an example; Two fully 3d panel codes (in Matlab) for lifting and non-lifting bodies respectively are freely downloadable from Virginia tech.

3)Who should buy your code? I don't want to be offensive! Small and medium companies uses VSAERO, PMARC...PANAIR is sell at few hundreds dollars at www.pdas.com These codes have all been extremely tested in a variety of conditions (a lot of reports are downloadable from NASA) from NASA, all of them have unsteady, boundary layer capability; PANAIR is a higher order code for supersonic flows also. I don't think that is there some one disposed to give a penny without having back a full support from who made the software. Elsewhere is always possible find cracked code without pay a penny.

Who remain are the students but, the few aerodynamicist, those interested in such a code, have a so big love for this discipline that would like to make such a code by themselves. They can also have access to the department codes (usually PMARC and VSAERO).

I'm sorry for my criticism but...it's true. Regards