CGNS Steering Committee

Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 7:30pm. There were 12 attendees, listed below. In additon, Armen Darian, Ray Cosner, Michel Delanaye and John Chawner indicated that they would not be able to attend the meeting and sent information to the Chair or an alternate.

The minutes of the 11 May 2000 telecon were approved as posted on the Web.

• Bob Bush reviewed the AIAA CFD Committee on Standards that occurred on the previous evening. The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing how to collect a database of CFD validation data, and the requirements for such data. People with an interest or potentially data to contribute should contact Ray Cosner.
  
  
• There was a brief discussion about the process for adding new 'official' members to the Steering Committee. It was agreed that the Chairperson would solicit and collect nominations, and review current member activity over the year in the fall. This information will be used to develop a slate of proposed changes to the Steering Committee that will be distributed via e-mail for review and comment. Based on this feedback a slate will be developed for discussion, potential modification and approval at the January meeting at Reno.
  
  
• ISO Status - Doug McCarthy gave a brief review of the effort to develop an ISO Standard for aerodynamic data based on CGNS. Draft documents will be reviewed by members of the CGNS Steering Committee in Seattle on 6-7 July, and are scheduled to be put out for public review and comment in August. We will send notice of where the proposed standards are posted to the extended CGNS Steering Committee mailing list so interested parties may review the proposals.
  
  
• Documentation - Bob Bush introduced Charlie Town (who could not be present) who has agreed to serve as the Documentation Focal Point. Charlie has created a new draft of the SIDS with all extensions included. Bob Bush, Diane Poirier and Chris Rumsey are reviewing the draft. The new version should be released some time in July. There was also a request for Charlie to put together a summary of the SIDS changes, for quick reference for implementers.

  Chris Rumsey has agreed to draft a User's Guide Tutorial for CGNS. This will be drafted and circulated for review, hopefully to be finished by the end of the year.

  Steve Legensky volunteered to take the lead on developing an implementation paper, potentially for next summer's conferences. The paper would summarize CGNS implementations in various vendor/supplier codes, and demonstrate communication of data across organizations.

  In reviewing the SIDS, we noticed a nomenclature discrepancy in the definition of 'mut' and 'nut'. We propose changing the definition of 'ViscosityEddy' to mut, and adding ViscosityEddyKinematic as the name for nut. We have not found anyone who objects to changing the standard in this way, so the SIDS will be changed. Hopefully this will not cause compatibility issues for anyone.
  
  

• User Support - A plea for a volunteer to become the Support Focal Point was made. The Support Focal Point would be the first contact for users, answering questions and/or distributing them to others for follow-up. Anyone interested in serving in such a role please contact Bob Bush.

  There was some discussion of developing web based user support, groups and forums (potentially similar to 'Kiva talk' for example). Don Roberts agreed to look into how Tecplot handles the support role. The maintenance of such support could also be the function of the Support Focal Point, should we be able to find one!
  
  

• Extensions - Diane Poirier gave an overview of the API and SIDS extensions released this year.

  Alpesh Patel provided a draft extension for hierarchical data structures. After some discussion, Alpesh agreed to take the lead on circulating the proposal for comment and revision. Interested parties include: Jamil Appa, Bob Bush, Diane Poirier, Steve Karman. We should also ask Fluent if they would like to comment (Dave Schowalter is a good first contact).

  Steve Legensky proposed a way to support hanging nodes. There was much discussion on the need, and differentiating it from the hierarchical data structures. This may generalize to how to handle non-linear elements in CGNS. Steve agreed to have Intelligent Light look into it further and draft a more formal proposal in the future.
  
  

• Schedule - A draft schedule was posted and discussed. The amended schedule is shown below. Note that the persons responsible for developing and circulating extensions are listed. The development of the extension should proceed to the point where it can be provided to the Documentation Focal Point for inclusion in the documentation, and the Software Focal Point for implementation in the API.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:30pm.

Attendees

Schedules