[Tech] Calling the THN Brain Trust

[Dr Drae]

Right, so my mother is going back to Uni next year to study engineering geology, and she has asked me to sort her out with a laptop capable of good 3D modelling, and also some software that does such a thing. You guys know what you're doing, so I'm posting on the off-chance somebody here knows something / knows somebody who does?

Also, what sort of specs / laptops / price ranges am I looking at?

Anybody who's heard my mother in the background over TS knows she's a wrathful being, so it needs to be very capable, so that I get to live. Heh.

So yeah, any help in any form would be much appreciated.

Also, I can't expand on '3D modelling', I just assume it's drawing lots of lines to show volcanoes and stuff.

 

[Huung]

Right, so my mother is going back to Uni next year to study engineering geology, and she has asked me to sort her out with a laptop capable of good 3D modelling, and also some software that does such a thing. You guys know what you're doing, so I'm posting on the off-chance somebody here knows something / knows somebody who does?

Also, what sort of specs / laptops / price ranges am I looking at?

Anybody who's heard my mother in the background over TS knows she's a wrathful being, so it needs to be very capable, so that I get to live. Heh.

So yeah, any help in any form would be much appreciated.

Also, I can't expand on '3D modelling', I just assume it's drawing lots of lines to show volcanoes and stuff.

If 3D modelling is what's important in terms of the upper limits of the laptop, you really do need to expand a little more

Is she aware of what needs to be modelled, or is this just based on things she's heard/read about? If so could she enquire further?
It also depends what she actually needs to do with these models. Does she need to just render images of them? Or does she need to process them further?
Most 3D work is CPU intensive, rather than graphics intensive - but once again, it depends if she's running simulations of some sort.

Hopefully Panda can come along and enlighten us on what rock-loving-people need in terms of software/hardware

 

[Spicypixel]

Avoid Intel gpu solutions if you ever want a 3d display to work. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Traxata]

Avoid Intel gpu solutions if you ever want a 3d display to work. Just my 2 cents.

Why did you remove your first draft expected massive post from you!

 

[Panda with issues...]

Does she know what sort of software she'll be using?

The ones that I've used/seen used around the department/in industry are things like:

Kingdom Suite/Petrell/That burial modelling software I can never remember - Oil industry standards

Datamine/Vulcan - Mining industry staples

And then things like Matlab, which is just a standard numerical modelling program.

Out of these, I think the most likely things she's gonna use (if any of these) would be Matlab.

I'm not really sure if she'll need a laptop to run these programs, as typically universities will have workstations set up with this software on them. - Also worth bearing in mind are licensing issues. Universities are poor, and typically are only allocated a set number of licenses for the department as a whole (being paid for through industry links/donated by the software company as a method of trying to widen knowledge of their product), and these are normally 'floating licenses' that can only be used within the department network.

I would strongly suggest waiting until she knows more about what she needs, rather than buying now and regretting it later.

That said:

Matlab is likely to be a bit more widely available, and the computers that run it at our uni were probably pretty high end maybe 5 years ago. Now, not so much, so any reasonably powerful computer should be ok with this stuff. The main problems seem to be when saving and loading the large datafiles that these programs inevitably require. I'm a computer retard, but I suspect what governs the ability to do this is the amount of RAM in the computer? Feel free to call me a noob if that's completely wrong.

The only other thing that is worth noting is that the other major issue using this sort of crap on a laptop is screen size. Most of the workstations at uni set up to run this kind of guff have 2 or even three monitors for more space and the ability to run multiple bits of the software at once. In this case, a laptop is really not optimal.

Another useful thing would be a really good, comfortable to use mouse.

Overall though, I'd strongly suggest waiting, and finding out if she'll even NEED or BE ALLOWED to run the software externally, before shelling out on something that might not be necessary or appropriate.

 

[Panda with issues...]

Also, I can't expand on '3D modelling', I just assume it's drawing lots of lines to show volcanoes and stuff.

If this is all she needs to do, I'd suggest CorelDraw or AdobeIllustrator, both standard graphical packages. These aren't 3d modelling packages though, maybe she wants a CAD package? I don't know.

I personally prefer corelDraw, as that's what we were taught to use in uni. I actually think its a pretty good piece of software. It's also a vector package, which means saved files tend to be quite small and portable - Useful for uni.

I'm not sure, but I think Illustrator is a raster package, and thus requires more space to save images, seems to be a point of personal preference though tbh, which is better. I think these packages normally run at 100-200 pounds, but again, she may be able to download them for free from the uni, which is what we can do with most software we need. None of the industry standard packages are worth looking into. A license for those normally costs tens of thousands of pounds.

What Uni is she going to?

 

[Iron_fist]

also ArcGIS, but don't get me started on that...
that basically needs RAM and a nice CPU, maybe a GPU if using the 3d analyst extension that a fair few of the geological toolboxes use.

but yeah as panda says, wait until you know what she'll be using and then get something to spec then (though knowing the Patrell licence cost, i highly doubt she'll have a personal copy of that unless it's cracked)

 

[Dr Drae]

Thanks for the almost instantaneous replies guys. :3

She's going to Portsmouth Uni, doing an Open University course, and just now after giving me this task, I've given her questions back and she's said she's going to wait until she's spoken to the mentor / lecturer, 'cus she knows very little. Thanks very much guys, (especially Panda, I assume you're studing something similiar?) and I'll probably re-open this topic once she knows more.

 

[Panda with issues...]

also ArcGIS, but don't get me started on that...

Man I hate arcGIS. What course are you doing Fist?

especially Panda, I assume you're studing something similiar?

Yeah, I did my undergrad and masters in Geology at Southampton, with a focus on mineral deposits and mining. I'm currently doing a Ph.D on the geochemistry of Zambian copper deposits.

Glad to be of use. I didn't want you to waste your money.

 

[Iron_fist]

technically i'm in the middle of an AI degree, but i'm currently working for a small tech company who do mapping and tracking stuff which means lots of GIS so being the "techie" for the company i get the joy of dealing with server and all the headaches that entails (and haven't yet actually had any training in it so am basically stabbing in the dark for most things)

 

[Pwnstar]

...engineering geology

Bitch, tomorrow we're making planets.

 

[Haven]

3D modelling is often RAM intensive so make sure to get something with as much RAM as you can afford (I'd suggest 8GB minimum). Second up check is the software she'll be using is GPU accelerated or not - that will tell you whether to spend on a CPU or GPU power.

Beyond that its really down to the quality of the screen, if this is going to be used as her sole computer then get a 17" screen (heavy to carry but easy to work with).

 

[[THN]Buffalo_Hunter]

oftware developers have built several packages for geologic modelling purposes. Such software can display, edit, digitise and automatically calculate the parameters required by engineers, geologists and surveyors. Current software is mainly developed and commercialized by oil and gas or mining industry software vendors:

Packages include:
Paradigm Gocad[10] and SKUA
Geocap
Landmark Graphics Corporation DecisionSpace Earth Modeling
Roxar IRAP_RMS_Suite
Dynamic Graphics Inc. EarthVision
Jewel Suite by JOA Oil&Gas
Geomodeller3D, Intrepid Geophysics
GSI3D
Schlumberger Petrel
FastTracker (Reservoir Modelling)
ArcGIS
Aranz Geo Ltd Leapfrog



What budget are you looking at for the whole package?