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Can someone help me send some suggestions about Altair software to the development team？

I mainly engage in structural analysis and multi-body dynamics analysis. As an engineer who frequently uses Altair simulation software, the transition from old interface to new interface has shown me a revolutionary change in CAE software. However, there are some small features that I think may require better development ideas;

You can treat some useless suggestions as nonsense

Suggestion 1: Altair needs to unify all software default operation gestures, such as EDEM, simsolid, which are different from Hyperworks' operation gestures and need to be adjusted separately. In addition, Simlab's selection method is very different from Hyperworks, where the left mouse button can be clicked or unselected. I think these small details can be unified and belong to one company's software;
Suggestion 2: It seems that all software that requires Python API can learn the Python demo function of Inspire2026 and integrate it directly into the software, making it convenient for people who need secondary development software to get started and learn;

Suggestion 3: For Inspire: Can the development team add gear, rope, gear, belt, and track tool kits in the future, similar to Motionview's mechanical tool kit; I hardly use motion view now, the function of inject motion is really useful. It would be even better if a simple hydraulic and electronic control module for Twin activation could be added later;

Suggestion 4: For motionview, I feel that I can learn from Inspire. Some functions of Inspire's Motion have been done perfectly. For example, the output of forces and moments on many hinges needs to be created one by one, which is relatively inefficient. In addition, it is very convenient to debug the model in Inspire, because real-time charts can be produced during calculation, and the calculation process can know whether the parameter settings are correct, but ms is not so convenient; In addition, in MS's mechanical tools, the bearing pair does not support rigid body groups;

Suggestion 5: I also use Simlab. I have observed that Simlab has started supporting star ccm+, but it seems that it does not yet support the generation of polyhedral meshes with star ccm+. Hypermesh CFD also has this problem. Currently, Siemens has acquired Altair, so Hypermesh CFD can fully integrate star ccm+. I have tried the UI of star ccm+, but I think it is outdated and not as user-friendly as the UI of Hypermesh CFD. If star ccm+is integrated, combined with the advantages of Acusole, I think CFD can completely achieve the first place. However, currently I only see some trends in Simlab;

Suggestion 6: When will EDEM replace the UI? I can't stand this old UI anymore, it doesn't look like a product from 2025 at all. What is the development team doing? Do you want to patch tattered clothes? The best solution now is to switch to a similar style of hyperworks, which can fully utilize the hypermesh CFD interface UI. EDEM currently only has one advantage: it occupies the market early, but post-processing is very difficult to use, and the software style is completely detached from the market. If don't make any changes, it will eventually be taken over by Ansys' Rocky; The UI in Simlab is completely better than the UI of independent software now. It's time to make changes;Another issue is that the unit of EDEM is essentially meters. Even if switched to millimeters, when using millimeters in Motionview, the coupling results of EDEM and Motionview will encounter problems when displayed simultaneously in Hyperview

Suggestion 7: Can hypermesh contact pairs add a grouping function? For example, I have 50 contact pairs, ten of which belong to part 1 and part 2, and the remaining 40 belong to part 3 and part 4. So, I created two contact pair collectors to distinguish them, which is very useful for model checking. Why not do such a good function?

There should still be some, but I can't remember for a moment. Forget it, it's useless to say more；

I hope someone can help me forward it to the development team, as not every suggestion may be appropriate

Find more posts tagged with

EDEM

HyperMesh

Inspire

MotionView/MotionSolve

SimLab

Accepted answers

All comments

Renan

Hi Jin,

Thanks for the feedback. However, I think it’s important to distinguish between visually modern and functionally effective.

EDEM's current UI reflects deliberate design trade-offs focused on stability, information density, and predictable workflows rather than visual trends. For complex post-processing tasks, those factors tend to matter more than appearance alone.

If there are specific workflows or UI elements that you find particularly difficult to use, concrete examples would be much more actionable than general stylistic comparisons.

Best regards,

Renan

Jin1

Perhaps my expression is somewhat vague. I believe that the ease of interaction between EDEM and Ansys' Rocky DEM is similar to that of the old and new versions of Hypermesh; I have been using EDEM and Rocky Dem for several years. I have participated in EDEM's offline training, communicated with engineers from other companies, and communicate with our internal engineers. Almost everyone agrees that Rocky Dem is better than EDEM, and even some agents' engineers chat with us privately; I would like to say a few points that experience the gap is particularly huge:

① The geometry of the EDEM import is often stuck or the rotation of the model is very stuck after the import, while the same model is very smooth on rock, which is not only my feedback on this problem, but also the students and engineers I met roast on some forums;
② When Rocky is solving, he can choose the GPU specified on the machine, but I haven't seen EDEM do this yet. I consulted the agent, and they told me that it still needs to be done through the command stream, and even they themselves are ambiguous;
③ Video export, it is strongly recommended to learn Rocky's video export UI. EDEM's video export is a bit anti human;
④ The most important point is that I view real-time change data within the statistical domain during the solving process. For example, there are 5 statistics; I need to switch to the post-processing interface, and sometimes even pause, which is not necessary in Rocky. As long as I set it up earlier and click refresh, I can smoothly switch back and forth between 5 windows; Even the total mass of the statistical domain that changes over time， EDEM needs to be exported in CSV format for processing;
⑤ Script and external module collection and display. In Rocky, scripts can be displayed in one place, and can be run directly by clicking play on the software interaction page. EDEM needs to select from the script running section, and the same applies to external modules; Software interactivity is not as strong as Rocky's;

⑥ The help documentation is still incomplete. For example, when I use Rocky, I need to purchase hardware. Should I buy a dual precision high computing power card or a single precision high computing power card? For mainstream consumer and enterprise graphics cards, Rocky has already released a detailed GPU purchase guide, while EDEM has scattered some PPTs and forum posts, and even asked agents for GPU test comparison data. The information given to us is confusing, which is the testing of certain models of GPUs calibrated;

⑦ Coupled fluids, Altair's CFD software cannot compete with Fluent, so many people are coupling Fluent. However, now Ansys has Rocky, so the convenience of coupling Fluent with Rocky is definitely stronger than coupling EDEM. In the enterprise, the market share of Star CCM+is not lower than Fluent, and even higher than Fluent. Since it has been acquired by Siemens, it is necessary to exit the interface and training of coupling Star CCM+as soon as possible. It may already exist, but I have not found it