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Talk Intermediate

OSDAG (Open Steel Design and Graphics): A Free and Open Source Software for Design of Steel Structures

Approved
Session Description

Osdag is a free and open-source tool for the design of steel structures. Osdag is being developed under the umbrella of FOSSEE at IIT Bombay. The main objectives of Osdag are: 

  1. To have an interactive tool for educators across India and elsewhere to teach the design of steel structures to civil engineering students

  2. To provide an open-source tool to the structural consultancy industry, where they have a clear picture of what is in the backend and can update and develop specific modules

Osdag provides a unique platform where users can essentially do two things:

  1. Design Checking: The user may have an already existing design and wants to check if it is correct. The user can input these values and can check the efficacy of the design. 

  2. Getting an Optimised Design: The user can get an optimised design based on the load input data from Osdag. 

Osdag stands apart from other software owing to some of its features, which include:

  1. Interactive GUI: We have opted for a very simple and easy-to-use GUI. This makes it simple for an undergraduate student to explore and learn the design of steel structures. 

  2. Visualisation: As a part of the design, Osdag provides a 3D view of the components of the steel structure being designed. This enables students to visualise what a real-life structure/connection may look like. 

  3. Detailed Reports: As a part of the design output, Osdag gives a very detailed report which provides all the design calculations it is doing in the backend. These reports become handy for DBR submissions and also for learning the calculations in detail. 

We are continuously developing Osdag to update it as per latest state of the art practising trends and adding new modules and features. We are also developing a web-based version of Osdag.

The software is essentially developed by Research Staff, PhD/Post-Docs, Master's and Bachelor’s Degree Students and Interns at IIT Bombay. We have multiple rounds of internships around the year open to any student across India. These internships are being offered through FOSSEE, ICFOSS and IRCC-IIT Bombay.


Key Takeaways

  1. About Osdag and FOSSEE, and the idea behind Osdag. 

  2. Why is Osdag focusing on Steel Structures?

  3. A short demo of the features in Osdag.

  4. How can contributions be made to Osdag?

References

https://github.com/osdag-admin/Osdag/

Session Categories

Introducing a FOSS project or a new version of a popular project
Community
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Main track

Speakers

Parth Karia
Project Research Associate | IIT Bombay

I am a structural engineer specialising in steel structure design & computation, and automation in structural engineering. I employ a detailed parametric study to tackle any problem to provide an effective and economical solution. This process has strengthened my fundamentals in steel structure design. This allows me to actively contribute to Osdag and delve deeper into Steel Structure Design.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/parth-karia-aa917a39/
Parth Karia

Reviews

This has a very specific target audience, and I am not sure how it helps the FOSS community to know about the software.

Reviewer #1 Rejected

We need people in open source to take notice of problems elsewhere, and eventually build.

Reviewer #2 Approved

The proposal highlights how open-source tool OSDAG is solving a real-world engineering problem through FOSS. However, I would recommend elaborating more clearly on how interested developers or FOSS contributors can get involved in the project.

Reviewer #3 Approved

Love this problem. It is niche, but I think it benefits to have niche talks - there will always be some learnings at the intersections. I'd suggest the proposer to have steel design as a core and have other topics on software design and development at the periphery to make the talk relatable to all

Reviewer #4 Approved

It's niche, but this also can create awareness of how OS project that's very specific to a domain evolve

Reviewer #5 Approved

This is fascinating ! I am wondering if this is a tool that is easy enough to be used beyond just education and by civil engineers. After all, every FOSS developer stays somewhere. Why not simulate it ? If this talk can touch upon some aspects that hobbyists can use, then that will amplify the utility of this software.

Reviewer #6 Approved