midas NFX Client Testimonial
Chris Hollingworth, Infinite Analysis UK

Interface

After 15 years of FEA, I'm often surprised how little some of the software tools have advanced. Despite most CAD tools developing quickly, many CAE tools haven't changed much. Even some of the most popular, expensive programs have either sacrificed flexibility for simplicity, or they are very powerful but with awkward, outdated interfaces. NFX appears to have solved this. Not only does the interface seem modern and intuitive, it still has the range of powerful tools that I use every day. Furthermore, these tools are presented in a single interface, where I can seamlessly change from geometry, to mesh, to boundary conditions, to results, in seconds. Despite the updated interface, the workflow still has the familiarity of Nastran, which is already second nature to many analysts.

Tools

It's quite popular these days for engineers to expect everything to be simple and automatic. There are programs out there which rely on this premise for there user base. NFX has all these tools, automesh, geometry import, apply loads to surfaces, etc, however the classical users haven't been forgotten. If I want to create a 'spider' of rigid 1d elements, end release a beam, or manually add a row of 2d shells, I can still do it.

Solving

In a industry where companies want to charge you to solve for not only every physical CPU you have, but for every core, it's quite surprising that Midas don't bother with this structure. Not only can you solve with as many cores as you like, you can also harness your GPU for no extra cost.

Price

In my experience it's unusual for a small business to have high level CAE capability, the cost of such systems are usually reserved for medium to large companies. For a business beginning with a single person, most software of this nature is just not cost effective. Before discovering NFX, I was only able to offer my services to companies who already had CAE capability, they were just looking for a temporary increase in skilled users. Furthermore, as a small business you often attract other small businesses, who would like CAE support but don't have the capital available to pay a larger business with expensive software. With NFX, I can afford to charge a sensible rate as my own software costs make that possible.