Many computer-aided design systems feature computational techniques to evaluate potential designs. These systems feature mathematical models of the design, including the representation of boundary conditions such as the region of air flow around a part. In addition, advanced CAD systems support analytical methods including finite element and finite difference techniques. Such computational methods require complex mesh structures used to discretize the geometric domain, over which an approximate numerical solution can be executed.

Kitware has developed a variety of software tools for representing, analyzing and visualizing complex design geometries and analysis results. Many of our open-source tools are in use by commercial CAD/CAM vendors. Kitware works with such vendors to integrate our leading edge technology into their product lines, or to build data exchange models between Kitware's tools and the vendor's commercial packages.