ESATAP is a post-processing tool for thermal analysis data which is currently under development. This ESA funded project originates from the community need for a well-validated, independent, customisable and extendable thermal post-processing software.
All along the project, from the definition of the software and user requirements to its validation with real industrial test cases, ESATAP will keep a strong involvement of end-users and developers. To answer the requirement to perform both basic and advanced thermal analysis, ESATAP is based on an extendable component toolbox and a language, allowing developers to compose their own post-processing task, with high flexibility. ESATAP is an open source project implemented in the Python object oriented language. Python is also used for developers to define their post-processing component network, thus offering all existing advanced language facilities. By using the STEP-TAS data exchange standard, ESATAP is kept independent of the thermal analysis tool that was used to generate the data and so, is able to interface with various software tools.
ESATAP provides a framework for users to perform all their thermal analysis tasks and for developers to extend the available functionalities. A first release of ESATAP is currently being implemented and is planned to be completed by the end of 2005.