Gamma Technologies and Plotly Partner on Updates to Industry-Leading Engineering Simulation Platform

Introduction

For over 25 years, Gamma Technologies has produced leading simulation software with wide applications in conventional, hybrid, and electric vehicle engineering. When it came time for Gamma Technologies to update their product’s data plotting engine, their team engaged Plotly’s Professional Services to ensure a smooth and thorough transition while reducing development and maintenance costs.

Challenge

Gamma Technologies’ GT-SUITE is an established software for multi-scale, multi-physics system simulations. Any major change must be implemented with care to ensure an optimal end-user experience for the thousands of engineers who use the platform. When preparing to overhaul GT-SUITE’s plotting engine, the product team spent many months evaluating more than 10 open-source graphing libraries to find a solution that would:

• Feasibly achieve parity of chart types with their current plotting engine, which had been built in-house in Java.
• Reduce the development and maintenance costs of implementing new plotting capabilities going forward.
• Integrate easily with the product’s automated graphing functionalities.

Solution

After evaluating more than 10 open-source graphing libraries, Gamma Technologies tried the open-source Plotly.js Graphing Library.

• Plotly’s large scope of scientific and technical computing chart types already covered around 60% to 70% of the charts represented in Gamma Technologies’ current plotting engine.
• Gamma Technologies engaged Plotly’s Professional Services team, collaborating to ensure the successful implementation of the Plotly.js library within the GT-SUITE desktop application.
• Plotly’s Professional Services team developed automatic formatting capabilities in the Plotly.js library to support the automated chart creation that Gamma Technologies’ end users had come to expect from the platform.

Results

Gamma Technologies made an impactful business decision by engaging Plotly Professional Services and leveraging the extensive scope of technical computing chart types available within the Plotly.js Graphing Library.

• 20%-30% total development time saved on developing new chart types for GT-SUITE, such as the Sankey diagram, which would have required months to build without Plotly.js.
• Reduced maintenance and time costs of implementing new plotting features because Plotly.js already accommodated many of the GT-SUITE’s existing technical computing chart types.
• Gamma Technologies continues to integrate Plotly.js in more applications within the GT-SUITE platform, expanding their audience’s access to interactive technical computing visualization.