This week, simulation giant ANSYS announced that its very own ANSYS AppStore is up and running.
The new e-commerce platform aims to put all of your favourite ANSYS apps in one place, making it easier to search, filter, buy and share applications from ANSYS and its partners.
Before we have a look at the site in a little more detail, let’s walk through some key highlights of the site.
They include:
- It’s a new web interface that provides customers and application developers with a best-in-class browsing and e-commerce experience.
- Customers can now purchase, download and start using an application within minutes, using several modes of payment such as credit cards, purchase orders or wire transfers in multiple currencies.
- All paid applications are now available exclusively with annual lease licensing.
- Customers can shop for both ANSYS and non-ANSYS applications on the AppStore using a common ANSYS account. The Discovery portal is now combined with the new AppStore.
- It includes new filtering and sorting capabilities that enable faster search based on multiple attributes such as price, target application and version.
- There is updated information on each application that includes a description, pricing details and contact information for technical support.
- The site has dashboards for application creators that provide real-time analytics on metrics like downloads and purchases.
- Free apps are available, too!
Clicking on this link will take you to the AppStore, where you will see that ANSYS has gone for a minimal look for its shop front, making navigation super easy.
You’re free to browse the catalog in the AppStore without logging in, but if you want to download anything, you will have to log in to your ANSYS account. You’ll be prompted to log in when you click the download button for an app (if you’re not already logged in).
We wanted to check out some of the free apps, so we conducted a search for apps costing nothing, and were given a list of over 130 apps available for instant download.
Just casually scrolling through the list, the free apps of interest that stood out included a 3D acoustics solver, a topology optimization app, some DoE/response surface stuff for DesignXplorer, and a NACA Airfoil Maker for AIM.
Let’s have a quick look at that last one, because airfoils are cool and you can never have enough tools for creating wing geometry.
Clicking the download button downloads a small zip file via your browser with the binary file and a pdf with instructions for installation, as well as some info about the app.
Installation can be performed from the ACT start page, or from the extensions menu in ANSYS Workbench.
Once the app was installed, we added a geometry component to the project before opening the component in DesignModeler. In DesignModeler, pressing the Add Wizard button brings up the NACA wizard.
Going through the steps is easy, and in a short time we were able to produce both a solid wing shape and a flow volume. It’s that easy to install and use.
Many apps like the Airfoil Maker on the AppStore are built by the company’s customers and partners, and ANSYS is keen to point out the reduction in time and effort in getting apps developed with the new AppStore platform.
Previously, getting new apps developed by ANSYS—or its ecosystem of customers and partners—could take two to three weeks.
Now, within minutes, you can search, sort, filter, download and install the tools you need as easily as you would on your cellphone—as we have just demonstrated.
So, there it is: the ANSYS AppStore. It’s easy to use and takes little time to get your hands on a bunch of useful stuff—and that inventory of apps will continue to grow now that developers have a new platform where they can share their work.
Feel free to head on over to the AppStore and check it out over at this link!