As the millennium drew to a close, many physicists became increasingly excited about the convergence of physics and computer science. Computation was greatly accelerating progress in the field, and Dr. John R. Cary, a professor at the University of Colorado, and his colleague, Dr. Svetlana Shasharina, saw the merging of the two fields as an opportunity to apply their research to solve real-world problems. Together, they founded Tech-X Corporation in Boulder, Colorado, in 1994.

THE NEED FOR SCALABILITY

In the early years, Tech-X used object-oriented programming to create codes that described particle tracking. Though successful, the Tech-X team realized they could use their ideas to make more complex codes scalable, i.e., be able to use large numbers of computer processors effectively. Without scalability, the codes would be limited in their applicability and unable to tackle the more significant problems being researched in plasma and beam physics.

GREENFIELD IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH LEADS TO VORPAL

Taking a “greenfield implementation” approach, which requires building code entirely from scratch, they began work on a new code, which would later be known as VORPAL. The first paper describing VORPAL was published in the Journal of Computational Physics in 2004. A second paper that used VORPAL to explain laser-plasma interactions was featured on the cover of Nature that same year – a considerable accomplishment to any scientist. These two papers have been cited nearly 3000 times since 2004, as numerous other scientific entities have chosen to use the VORPAL code in their research.

THE LAUNCH OF VSIM

In 2010, in response to growing consumer demand for more user-friendly software, VSim was created. VSim took the powerful VORPAL physics engine and combined it with the VSim Composer graphical-user interface, allowing users to create physics simulations without manual programming. In addition, around this time, customizable “packages” were created for VSim so that users could customize the exact capabilities needed for their work.

USIM AND RSIM

As global sales of VSim grew, Tech-X observed a need for additional products outside of the VSim framework. So in 2013, the first version of USim, a charged, multi-fluids simulation application, was sold to consumers. Most recently, Tech-X has released RSim, which grew out of a Tech-X collaboration with NASA’s Orion mission. Used to simulate radiation transport, RSim is a user-friendly simulation product with applications from nuclear medicine to astronaut shielding.

OUR MISSION

From its early beginnings in a home in Boulder, Colorado, Tech-X has grown into a premier physics simulation software provider whose products contribute to the success of engineers and scientists across industries and specialties. Tech-X software products are utilized worldwide, where they continue to empower innovation and discover real-world solutions to complex problems.