FAQ

Why Galileo?

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Galileo has been called the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science.

Without a doubt, Galileo was an extraordinary man. The particular reason for using his name in this software is that, when pressured to deny his discoveries and abandon his scientific ways, he guarded his believes and invited others to the light of science. His ideals have been a strong motivation trough my life and I hope this contribution can help you understand, even if just a little bit better, this fabulous world we live in.

What Galileo is?

Galileo is a free software for finite element analysis. It is developed using the C++ programming language and aims for being as general as possible, while maintaining a user friendly approach. Galileo has a graphical user interface that allows for an easy modelling and post-processing experience while keeping a large range of options for advanced analysis of complex systems, including large displacements and rotations, inelastic material behavior, natural frequencies and vibrations modes, buckling modes, among others.

What Galileo isn't?

Galileo isn't a magic black box. The advanced analysis tools available in Galileo are the results of years researching, coding, testing, re-researching, re-coding, re-testing, sweet, tears, smiles and all other things one might experience while trying something new. While the code has been extensively tested, keep in mind that this is a free software developed by one person using its free time. Some of the features that you might want may not available at the current version, in which case I would be thankful if you could share them via an email. You might find some bugs or errors, and again I would be thankful if you could report it via an email. 

Galileo also isn't a complete software, meaning that there are still a lot of tools to be added. Some of them are already available in the analysis part but don't have the specific graphical interfaces, others just exist in a to-do list. For the foreseeable future, I'll keep trying to add all of them.

What Galileo is good at?

Galileo is good at, or at least tries to be good at, the following:

• Proving an easy-to-use finite elements modelling experience for complex systems

• Providing a large range of finite element solvers (static, dynamic, modal, buckling, etc)

• Providing a intuitive and complete post-processing tool

What Galileo isn't good at?

Galileo isn't good at:

• Performing undo operations

• Performing computations in parallel machines

• Your complaints about Galileo go here :)