Software

Software that anyone, anywhere on Earth, can use.

Software we use in the EDS

The Engineering Design Studio adopts an approach of using freely-available software, even when commercial software might be available for free under an academic license. Yes, Solidworks, Ansys, Matlab, and dozens of other companies make their software "free" for use in an academic setting. However, post-graduate, what's the strategy? (aside from piracy)

The list below is an ever-growing collection of tools that can be used both on-campus as well as anywhere else on earth, and hopefully, on just about any computer and operating system.

Note: Much of the best, freely-available software requires flexibility to use multiple operating systems. Look into running virtual machines, dual-booting (preferably from a secondary storage device), running bare-metal-level hypervisors, and booting from external drives. Long-term, the ability to use the most appropriate software will be determined by the abilty to comfortably access and run Linux, Windows, and (less often) MacOS.

Scientific / Numerical Computing

1. SciLab + Xcos + Atoms - "Scilab is a free and open source software for engineers & scientists". Xcos is a graphical editor to design hybrid dynamical systems models.. ATOMS (Automatic TOolboxes Management for Scilab) is the repository for packaged extension Toolboxes.
2. Octave - "GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab."
3. Maxima - "Maxima is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including differentiation, integration, Taylor series, Laplace transforms, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, sets, lists, vectors, matrices and tensors."
4. Mathics - "A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica®"
5. SageMath - "SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It builds on top of many existing open-source packages: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, Sympy, Maxima, GAP, FLINT, R and many more. Mission: Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab."
6. Spyder IDE - "Spyder is an open source, community-developed scientific environment and IDE written in Python, for Python."
7. Python (+venv)
8. Conda (anaconda)
9. Any project from NumFocus
10. SciPy
11. NumPy
12. R - "R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS."
13. Jupyter Notebooks
14. OpenMDAO

Robotics and Vehicles

1. WeBots - "Webots is an open source and multi-platform desktop application used to simulate robots. It provides a complete development environment to model, program and simulate robots."1. ROS + Gazebo
2. CARLA
3. CommaAI openpilot - "openpilot is an operating system for robotics. Currently, it upgrades the driver assistance system in 300+ supported cars."
4. AirSim - "Open source simulator for autonomous vehicles built on Unreal Engine / Unity, from Microsoft AI & Research"
5. NVIDIA OmniVerse
6. Pycrash - "Pycrash is a 2D mathematical model for simulating vehicle motion and vehicular impacts using a variety of approaches based on fundamental physics and published accident reconstruction techniques."
7. Eclipse openDUT - "Eclipse openDuT automates the testing and validation process for automotive software and applications. This includes offering a framework for the testing and validation process but also includes process descriptions of the intended use."
8. Blender - Can be used to generate high-quality synthetic image data for training.

Computer-Aided Engineering for Mechanical Systems

1. OnShape (Freemium)
2. FreeCAD
3. OpenCascade
4. OpenSCAD - "OpenSCAD is software for creating solid 3D CAD objects." The Graph Editor is an interesting way to interact with OpenSCAD.
5. OpenJSCAD.org
6. Blender
7. GMSH
8. MeshLab - "MeshLab is the open source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes. It provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, texturing and converting meshes. It offers features for processing raw data produced by 3D digitization tools/devices and for preparing models for 3D printing."
9. Polygonal (web) - "Polygonal is a web app for editing surface meshes. No signup. No subscription."
10. BeeGraphy - "BeeGraphy is a cloud-based platform designed specifically for computational designers. It offers seamless, cross-platform compatibility and eliminates the need for any installations, so you can work on Windows, Mac, or Linux."
11. SolveSpace - "SOLVESPACE is a free (GPLv3) parametric 3d CAD tool"
12. Leap71 (formerly hyperganic) - "At LEAP 71 we build complex technical objects using Computational Engineering Models (CEM)."

Computer-Aided Engineering for Civil Engineering

1. Awesome Civil Engineering - "This is a list of softwares and resource used in civil engineering practice."
2. xc - "Open source finite element analysis package for civil engineering structures."
3. Estru3D - "Program for structural analisys using the Stiffness Matrix Method."
4. PlenFrem - "PlenFrem is software for performing linear static analysis of 2D frame structures and trusses, suitable for civil/structural and mechanical engineering applications."
5. FRAME3DD - "FRAME3DD is a program for the static and dynamic structural analysis of two- and three-dimensional frames and trusses with elastic and geometric stiffness."
6. bars3d - "Linear and nonlinear finite element analysis of 3-dimensional frames, trusses and other such structures, designed for use in civil engineering."
7. FEMTA - "Easy to use 3D truss analyzer using finite element methods."
8. Fachwerk - "Fachwerk is aimed at structural engineers who analyse and design reinforced concrete structures. It intends to simplify the application of discontinuous stress fields and strut-and-tie models."
9. calc4fem - "preadsheet Template for Structural Engineering (FEA Analysis for beams, trusses, 2D-frames). It makes possible to create your own parametric models.Templates for engineering calculation (fatigue, concrete plates, etc)"
10. OSAFE workbench for FreeCAD - "A Workbench in FreeCAD for creating foundation model in CSI SAFE from CSI ETABS Model. It also can Import CSI SAFE model into FreeCAD and calculate Shear punching of columns according to ACI 318-19."
11. Google Earth (web) - The web version allows for collaboration and GIS-like actions without the headaches of QGIS.

Computer-Aided Engineering for Architecture

1. OnShape (Freemium)
2. The OSArch Community is "creating a built environment with free software, increased transparency, and a more ethical approach." The OS Arch Wiki is full of guides for switching to open-source architectural tools.
3. FreeCAD - "FreeCAD is an open-source parametric 3D modeler made primarily to design real-life objects of any size." Not specifically designed for architecture, but it has a BIM Workbench that assists on architecure projects.
4. SweetHome3D - "Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application which helps you draw the plan of your house, arrange furniture on it and visit the results in 3D." Can capture pretty detailed building designs, despite it being mainly targeted at interior design.
5. Blender - Surprisingly, with some plug-ins and add-ons, Blender can begin to be useful for architecture. It also allows for Rhino/Grasshopper generative/computational design through its node editor and scripting.
6. SketchUp (free version) - "SketchUp is a proprietary 3D modeling software that is used to create and manipulate 3D models. It is used in architecture and interior design."
7. BlenderKit (Freemium) - "BlenderKit is a community‑driven 3D asset library integrated into Blender 3D."
8. CAD Sketcher add-on for Blender - "At the core of it all, CAD Sketcher believes in facilitating precision modeling within blender. We are not looking to replace CAD programs. We just want to bring CAD-like functionality to the world of mesh modeling."
9. Bonsai add-on for Blender - "An add-on for beautiful, detailed, and data-rich OpenBIM with Blender "
10. Building Tools add-on for Blender - "Building Tool is a blender addon created with the purpose of simplifying and automating the process of creating building exteriors."
11. Blender GIS - "Blender addons to make the bridge between Blender and geographic data."
12. Mtree add-on for Blender - "Mtree (previously Modular Tree) is a library for making 3d trees. It comes as an addon for blender but the c++ library can be used separately."
13. Sverchok (with Blender + Geometry Nodes) - "Sverchok is a parametric CAD tool for Blender built to help generate complex 3d shapes using a node system to control the flow of math and geometry. It is ideally suited to Architects and Designers, but anyone with highschool Math and Trigonometry will be able to produce results that are impossible to achieve unless you know text based programming languages such as Python or C."
14. verb - "verb is a library for creating and manipulating NURBS surfaces and curves in many languages including JavaScript."
15. Web-NURBS - "Web NURBS is light weight 3D modeling software designed to run in your browser."
16. Ayam - "Ayam is a free 3D modelling environment for the RenderMan interface"

Computer-Aided Engineering for Biological Systems

1. Software identified by the Open Source Imaging Initiative - "The Open Source Imaging Initiative (OSI²) e.V. is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting open-source medical imaging technology."

Computer-Aided Engineering for Electrical Systems

1. KiCAD - "KiCad is an open source software suite for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). The programs handle Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber and IPC-2581 output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and is licensed under GNU GPL v3." Has tons of plugins and libraries and drives many external tools.
2. LibrePCB - "LibrePCB is a free, cross-platform, easy-to-use electronic design automation suite to draw schematics and design printed circuit boards – for makers, students and professionals, from beginners to experts."
3. Ringdove EDA - "Ringdove is a free/open source Electronic Design Automation suite that offers a schematics editor, a PCB editor , a gerber/excellon viewer"
4. QUCS / QUCS-S - "Qucs is an integrated circuit simulator which means you are able to setup a circuit with a graphical user interface (GUI) and simulate the large-signal, small-signal and noise behaviour of the circuit."
5. Logisim - "Logisim is a Java application that lets you design and simulate circuits using a graphical interface, truth tables, and a large component library. It runs on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows and is licensed under GPLv2."
6. Logisim (web) - "Logisim is an educational tool for designing and simulating digital logic circuits. This web-based version of Logisim has been adapted to run in the browser, powered by WebAssembly."
7. Logisim Evolution - "Logisim-evolution is educational software for designing and simulating digital logic circuits. Logisim-evolution is free, open-source, and cross-platform.
8. Icarus Verilog - "Icarus Verilog is intended to compile ALL of the Verilog HDL, as described in the IEEE 1364 standard. Of course, it's not quite there yet."
9. Verilator - "Verilator is a software programming tool which converts the hardware description language Verilog to a cycle-accurate behavioral model in the programming languages C++ or SystemC."
10. GHDL - "GHDL is an open-source analyzer, compiler, simulator and (experimental) synthesizer for VHDL, a Hardware Description Language (HDL). GHDL is not an interpreter: it allows you to analyse and elaborate sources for generating machine code from your design."
11. Fizzim - "Fizzim is a FREE, open-source GUI-based Finite-State-Machine design tool."
12. OpenVAF - "OpenVAF is a Next-Generation Verilog-A compiler that empowers the open source silicon revolution."
13. MaxFEM - "MaxFem is an open software package for electromagnetic simulation by using finite element methods. The package can solve problems in electrostatics, direct current, magnetostatics and eddy-currents."
14. Palace - "Palace, for PArallel LArge-scale Computational Electromagnetics, is an open-source, parallel finite element code for full-wave 3D electromagnetic simulations in the frequency or time domain, using the MFEM finite element discretization library and libCEED library for efficient exascale discretizations."
15. MEEP - "Meep is a free and open-source software package for electromagnetics simulation via the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method spanning a broad range of applications."
16. gprMax - "gprMax is open source software that simulates electromagnetic wave propagation using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method for numerical modelling of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)"
17. OpenEMS - "openEMS is a free and open-source electromagnetic field solver using the EC-FDTD method. "

2D Computer-Aided Design

1. LibreCAD
2. QCAD

Rendering

1. Cycles in Blender
2. Twinmotion (free for individuals and small businesses)
3. D5 Render (community version is free for all)
4. filament - "Filament is a real-time physically based rendering engine for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and WebGL. It is designed to be as small as possible and as efficient as possible on Android."
5. LuxCore - "LuxCoreRender is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Based on state of the art algorithms, LuxCoreRender simulates the flow of light according to physical equations, thus producing realistic images of photographic quality."
6. Panda3D
7. MoonRay
8. Manta-Ray - "MantaRay is an advanced open-source renderer. It uses modern rendering techniques to generate photorealistic images of complex scenes."
9. AppleSeed

Finite Element Simulation and Analysis

1. OpenFoam
2. ParaView
3. FUN3D (NASA)
4. Project Chrono
5. GMSH
6. Elmer
7. SU2
8. Salome
9. Blender
10. Kratos Multiphysics - "Kratos Multiphysics (A.K.A Kratos) is a framework for building parallel multi-disciplinary simulation software. "
11. Impact Finite Element Program - "Impact is an explicit Finite Element Program Suite which simulates dynamic impact events. It has a range of elements, contact handling and different material laws."
12. SimScale (not free)
13. FEATool Multiphysics - "FEATool Multiphysics is a fully integrated, flexible and easy to use physics and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulation toolbox." There is a free version available, but it's a really sketchy licensing situation. Avoid, if possible.

Video Production and Editing

1. Davinci Resolve (freemium) - "DaVinci Resolve is the world’s only solution that combines editing, color correction, visual effects, motion graphics and audio post production all in one software tool! Its elegant, modern interface is fast to learn and easy for new users, yet powerful for professionals." The Free version should be sufficient for most non-professional work.
2. OpenShot Video Editor - "OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source video editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Easily cut, slice, and edit any video or film."
3. KDEnlive - "Kdenlive is the acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It works on Linux, Windows, macOS, and BSD."
4. Blender
5. OBS
6. FFMPEG
7. Handbrake
8. Subtitld - "Transform your video content creation with Subtitld - the open source software that streamlines your video content creation process."
9. Jubler - "Jubler is a free and open source subtitle editor for creating, editing, and converting text-based subtitles. It provides tools for authoring new subtitles and refining existing ones with video preview, quality validation, and extensive format support."
10. Tero Subtitler - "Tero Subtitler is an open source, cross-platform, and free subtitle editing software."
11. Nebula - "Nebula is an open source broadcast automation and media asset management system for television, radio and VOD platforms."

Embedded Systems

1. Visual Studio Code
2. PlatformIO

Software Development

1. Visual Studio Code
2. GitHub / GitLab
3. Eclipse IDE

Creative Coding

1. Processing - "Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code."
2. OpenFrameworks - "openFrameworks is an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding."
3. P5.js - "p5.js is a friendly tool for learning to code and make art."
4. PureData - "Pure Data (or just "Pd") is an open source visual programming language for multimedia."
5. Strudel REPL (web) - "strudel is a new live coding platform to write dynamic music pieces in the browser! It is free and open-source and made for beginners and experts alike."
6. Sonic Pi - "Sonic Pi is your free code-based music creation and performance tool."
7. Ryven - "Ryven lets you use the more diagram-like, dataflow inspired structure to represent data processing-centric functionality. Each node runs code, and Ryven provides a simple framework to create those and an editor to use them."
8. Node-RED - "Node-RED is a flow-based programming tool, originally developed by IBM Emerging Technology Services team and now a part of the OpenJS Foundation."

Model-Based Systems Engineering

1. OpenModelica - "OPENMODELICA is an open-source Modelica-based modeling and simulation environment intended for industrial and academic usage. Its long-term development is supported by a non-profit organization – the Open Source Modelica Consortium (OSMC)."
2. Modelio - "Modelio is a modeling solution offering a wide range of functionality based on commonly used standards for enterprise architecture, software development and systems engineering."
3. OpenMBEE - "OpenMBEE (Open Model Based Engineering Environment) is an open source collaborative engineering system. It enables engineers to work in the language of their choice and easily share and document their work across other tools."
4. Capella - "Capella is an open-source solution for model-based systems engineering (MBSE)."
5. Gaphor - "Gaphor is a UML, SysML, RAAML, and C4 modeling application. It is designed to be easy to use, while still being powerful. Gaphor implements a fully-compliant UML 2 data model, so it is much more than a picture drawing tool."
6. Papyrus (Eclipse) - "Papyrus is an open-source UML 2 tool based on Eclipse and licensed under the EPL." They have an application-specific configuration for Robotics that adheres to the RobMoSys approach.
7. Mermaid - "JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool that renders Markdown-inspired text definitions to create and modify diagrams dynamically."
8. D2: Declarative Diagramming - "Create beautiful diagrams in minutes. Simple syntax. Endlessly customizable. D2 is the fastest and easiest way to get a mental model from your head onto the screen, then make edits with your team."
9. PlantUML - "PlantUML is a highly versatile tool that facilitates the rapid and straightforward creation of a wide array of diagrams."

Large-Scale Modeling and Simulation

1. NVIDIA OmniVerse - "NVIDIA Omniverse™ is a platform of APIs, SDKs, and services that enable developers to integrate OpenUSD, NVIDIA RTX™ rendering technologies, and generative physical AI into existing software tools and simulation workflows for industrial and robotic use cases."
2. CityFlow - "CityFlow is a new designed open-source traffic simulator, which is much faster than SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility)."
3. SUMO: Simulation of Urban MObility - "SUMO allows modelling of intermodal traffic systems including road vehicles, public transport and pedestrians. Included with SUMO is a wealth of supporting tools which handle tasks such as route finding, visualization, network import and emission calculation."
4. OpenTrafficSim - "OpenTrafficSim aims to bring traffic simulation to a new level by: Combining micro-simulation, macro-simulation and meta-simulation in a single environment, Combining all traffic modes (private car, buses, bicycles, pedestrians, etc.) in a single simulator, and Providing options to link to external code, driving simulators, and data sources We bring together state of the art simulation techniques, software development techniques and the best people in the traffic, simulation and software fields."
5. CARLA: Car Learning to Act - "CARLA has been developed from the ground up to support development, training, and validation of autonomous driving systems."
6. A/B Street - "A/B Street is a traffic simulation game exploring how small changes to roads affect cyclists, transit users, pedestrians, and drivers. In other words, you can transform that street parking into a bus lane or fix that pesky left turn at a traffic signal, measure the effects, then propose actually making the change."
7. StreetMix (web) - "Design, remix, and share your neighborhood street. Add trees or bike paths, widen sidewalks or traffic lanes, learn how your decisions can impact your community. Start by moving some segments around."

Desktop Publishing and Text Editing

1. Google Suite - Google's Office Suite provides all the tools needed for most day-to-day content generation needs.
2. Libre Office - "LibreOffice is a private, free and open source office suite – the successor project to OpenOffice. It's compatible with Microsoft Office/365 files (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx) and is backed by a non-profit organisation."
3. Apache OpenOffice - "Apache OpenOffice is a leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more."
4. Scribus - "Scribus is a libre page layout program for almost every operating system". Think of it as an open-source alternative to Adobe InDesign.
5. Inkscape - "Inkscape is a Free and open source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and macOS. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting." Think of it as an open-source alternative to Illustrator.
6. LaTeX - "LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents."
7. TeXstudio - "TeXstudio is an integrated writing environment for creating LaTeX documents."
8. TexShop - "TeXShop is a TeX previewer for Mac OS X, written in Cocoa."
9. [Overleaf (self-hosted)]() - "A web-based collaborative LaTeX editor". Can be self-hosted using the Overleaf Toolkit.
10. Trelby - "A free, multiplatform, feature-rich screenwriting program!"
11. Fountain - "Fountain is a plain text markup language for screenwriting."
12. novelWriter - "A markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents."
13. ghostwriter - "Enjoy a distraction-free writing experience, including a full screen mode and a clean interface. With Markdown, you can write now, and format later."
14. STARC: Story Architect (Free version) - "Reinventing the screenwriting software. Become an early user to get exclusive access to all features and get unlimited power to your creativity."
15. Zotero - "Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research."
16. PDFsam Basic - "Split, merge, rotate, mix and extract pages from PDF files with PDFsam Basic, free and open source, at home or at work."
17. Visual Studio Code - "VS Code is a free code editor, which runs on the macOS, Linux, and Windows operating systems."
18. gLabels - Still one of the best tools for doing "Mail Merge" of data into formatted labels. Same result can be done in OpenOffice and others, but gLabels makes it really easy.
19. Google Fonts - fonts with open-licenses that allow free use.
20. Open Foundry - "Open Foundry is a FREE platform for curated open-source typefaces; to highlight their beauty, activate ideas and encourage exploration."
21. FontForge - "FontForge is a free and open source font editor brought to you by a community of fellow type lovers."

Operating Systems

1. Linux (most distros)
2. Pop_OS
3. Xubuntu

3D Polygon Sculpting (Digital Clay)

1. Blender
2. Blender for Artists - "Bforartists is a complete, free and opensource 3D suite to create CG content. It offers you the full 3D art pipeline to create game graphics, pre-rendered movies and stills. From modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, up to post processing. "
3. SculptGL (web, blocked in UAE) - "SculptGL is tiny sculpting application, powered by WebGL. It features dynamic subdivision, decimation, uniformisation and adaptive sculpting. You will find a few classical sculpting tools such as Brush, Inflate, Smooth and Flatten Beware of the adaptive option as it is not as safe as the others topological tools."
4. Wings3D - "Wings 3D is an advanced subdivision modeler that is both powerful and easy to use."
5. Polygonal (web) - "Polygonal is a web app for editing surface meshes. No signup. No subscription."
6. MeshLab - "MeshLab is the open source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes. It provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, texturing and converting meshes. It offers features for processing raw data produced by 3D digitization tools/devices and for preparing models for 3D printing."
7. MeshMixer - "Meshmixer is a free 3D modelling software that helps you to edit, fix, and get 3D models for 3D printing. It has tools to make changes like hollowing out models, closing holes, and fixing mistakes."
8. Three.js - "Three.js is a cross-browser JavaScript library and application programming interface (API) used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser using WebGL." There is an interesting online Three.js Editor and Three.js Playground. The tools and outcomes of Three.js work best in browsers that supports the WebGPU library; as of 2025, Chrome-based browsers are the most reliably supported.

Audio Production and Editing

1. Audacity - "Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. Audacity is free, open source software."
2. MIXXX - "Mixxx integrates the tools DJs need to perform creative live mixes with digital music files."
3. Ardour - "Ardour is a software for recording, editing, mixing and mastering audio and MIDI projects on Linux, macOS and Windows. It offers flexible signal routing, sync and external control, plugins, video timeline and more features for musicians, composers, podcasters and soundtrack editors."
4. Signal MIDI Editor - "Fully Open-sourced Online MIDI Editor. Start creating music without installing anything"
5. midi.city (web) - "midi.city is a free online synthesizer, built by Jack. midi.city has over 128 different instruments including: Pianos, Saxophones, Drums, Trumpets, Synth Pads, Guitar, Violins and all other instruments defined in the General Midi specification."
6. LMMS - "LMMS (formerly Linux MultiMedia Studio) is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, entering notes via computer keyboard or mouse (or other pointing device) or by playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers."
7. Ubuntu Studio - "Ubuntu Studio is a free and open source operating system, and an official flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio is the most widely used operating system specifically created for content creation in the world. It comes preinstalled with a selection of the most common free multimedia applications available, and is configured for best performance for various purposes: Audio, Graphics, Video, Photography and Publishing."
8. Qtractor - "Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt framework."
9. RoseGarden - "Rosegarden is a music composition and editing environment based around a MIDI sequencer that features a rich understanding of music notation and includes basic support for digital audio. Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments."
10. Bespoke Synth - "A software modular synth"
11. Hydrogen - Drum Machine
12. Yoshimi - "Yoshimi is a software audio synthesizer, originally forked from ZynAddSubFX."
13. MuseScore - "The World's Most Popular notation app"
14. LilyPond - "LilyPond is a music engraving program, devoted to producing the highest-quality sheet music possible. It brings the aesthetics of traditionally engraved music to computer printouts."
15. Power Tab Editor - "Power Tab Editor is an easy to use cross-platform guitar tablature editor and viewer. It is an open source, community-driven successor to the original Power Tab Editor 1.7."
16. OpenSong - "OpenSong is a free, open-source software application created to manage lyrics, chords, lead sheets, overheads, computer projection, and more."
17. TuxGuitar - "TuxGuitar is a multitrack guitar tablature editor and player written in Java-SWT, It can open GuitarPro, PowerTab and TablEdit files."
18. Azuracast - "AzuraCast is a free and open-source, self-hosted web radio station in a box"
19. Liquidsoap - "Liquidsoap is a powerful and flexible language for describing audio and video streams. It offers a rich collection of operators that you can combine at will, giving you more power than you need for creating or transforming streams."
20. OpenBroadcaster - "OpenBroadcaser is an Open Source Broadcast platform, designed to offer a simple and secure solution for storing, managing, and sharing your media content."
21. LibreTime - "LibreTime makes it easy to run your own online or terrestrial radio station. It is a community managed fork of the AirTime project."
22. Rivendell - "Rivendell is a complete radio broadcast automation solution, with facilities for the acquisition, management, scheduling and playout of audio content."

Mapping

1. OpenStreetMaps
2. QGIS
3. Google Earth Web
4. Google MyMaps
5. JOSM

Screen Recording and Live Streaming

1. OBS Studio
2. Twitch

Astronomy

1. OpenSpace - "OpenSpace is open-source interactive data visualization software designed to visualize the entire known universe and portray our ongoing efforts to investigate the cosmos."
2. Celestia
3. Stellarium

Photography

1. GIMP - "GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems."
2. DarkTable - "darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers."
3. RawTherapee - "RawTherapee is a free, cross-platform raw image processing program"
4. Hugin - "Hugin is an easy to use cross-platform panoramic imaging toolchain based on Panorama Tools. With Hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more."
5. Immich (self-hosted) - "Self-hosted photo and video management solution. Easily back up, organize, and manage your photos on your own server." Google / Apple Photos replacement.
6. Unsplash - "The internet’s source for visuals. Powered by creators everywhere." Free-to-use photos, if you select the correct license filter.

Photogrammetry / Structure from Motion

1. OpenDroneMap - "OpenDroneMap is an open source photogrammetry toolkit to process aerial imagery (usually from a drone) into maps and 3D models."
2. TeleSculptor - "TeleSculptor is an open source, cross-platform desktop application for photogrammetry. It was designed specifically with a focus on aerial video processing leveraging video metadata standards (MISB 0601) for geolocation, but it can handle both images and video either with or without metadata. "
3. Meshroom - "Meshroom is a free, open-source 3D Reconstruction Software based on the AliceVision framework." Can be used for photogrammetry.
4. MicMac - "MicMac is a free open-source (Cecill-B licence) photogrammetric suite that can be used in a variety of 3D reconstruction scenarios."
5. VisualSFM - "VisualSFM is a GUI application for 3D reconstruction using structure from motion (SFM). The reconstruction system integrates several of my previous projects: SIFT on GPU(SiftGPU), Multicore Bundle Adjustment, and Towards Linear-time Incremental Structure from Motion."
6. Bundler Structure from Motion Toolkit - "Bundler is a structure-from-motion system for unordered image collections (for instance, images from the Internet). Bundler takes a set of images, image features, and image matches as input, and produces a 3D reconstruction of the camera and (sparse) scene geometry as output."
7. COLMAP - "COLMAP is a general-purpose, end-to-end image-based 3D reconstruction pipeline (i.e., Structure-from-Motion (SfM) and Multi-View Stereo (MVS)) with a graphical and command-line interface."
8. Regard3D - "Regard3D is a structure-from-motion program. That means, it can create 3D models from objects using a series of photographs taken of this object from different viewpoints."
9. OpenSFM - "OpenSfM is a Structure from Motion library written in Python. The library serves as a processing pipeline for reconstructing camera poses and 3D scenes from multiple images."
10. MVE -- The Multi-View Environment - "The Multi-View Environment, MVE, is an implementation of a complete end-to-end pipeline for image-based geometry reconstruction. It features Structure-from-Motion, Multi-View Stereo and Surface Reconstruction. "
11. S2P - "S2P is a Python library and command line tool that implements a stereo pipeline which produces elevation models from images taken by high resolution optical satellites such as Pléiades, WorldView, QuickBird, Spot or Ikonos."
12. OpenMVG - "OpenMVG provides an end-to-end 3D reconstruction from images framework compounded of libraries, binaries, and pipelines."
13. Kalibr - "Kalibr is an open-source toolbox that addresses several critical sensor calibration challenges in robotics and computer vision. It provides a sophisticated framework for calibrating various sensor configurations with high precision and reliability."
14. Accurate geometric camera calibration - "accurate geometric camera calibration, i.e., establishing a mapping between image pixels and the pixels' 3D observation directions respectively lines. In particular, it supports calibration with generic camera models, which fit nearly every camera and allow for highly accurate calibration. "

Pixel-based Graphics Editors

1. GIMP
2. Photalius (web) - "Photalius is a free and open-source image editor designed to be easy to use "
3. ImageMagick
4. GraphicsMagick
5. Affinity by Canva

Vector-based Graphics

1. Inkscape
2. Krita
3. Graphite
4. PenPot (self-hosted)
5. Affinity by Canva

Free or Open-Source Simulation Games

1. FlightGear - "FlightGear is an open-source flight simulator. It supports a variety of popular platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) and is developed by skilled volunteers from around the world. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License."
2. Space Nerds in Space - "An Open Source Multi-player Starship Bridge Simulator for Linux"
3. TORCS - "TORCS, The Open Racing Car Simulator is a highly portable multi platform car racing simulation. It is used as ordinary car racing game, as AI racing game and as research platform. It runs on Linux (x86, AMD64 and PPC), FreeBSD, OpenSolaris and Windows."
4. Speed Dreams - "Speed Dreams is a free and open source motorsport simulator. Originally a fork of the TORCS project, it has evolved into a higher level of maturity, featuring realistic physics with tens of high-quality cars and tracks to choose from."
5. YS Flight - "YSFlight is a free flight simulator that places the user in control." Is is designed for systems with low graphical processing capabilities.
6. Universal Paperclips (web) - "niversal Paperclips is a 2017 American incremental game created by Frank Lantz of New York University. The user plays the role of an AI programmed to produce paperclips." People have put source code on gitHub.
7. Genetic Cars 2 - "The program uses a simple genetic algorithm to evolve random two-wheeled shapes into cars over generations. Loosely based on BoxCar2D, but written from scratch, only using the same physics engine (box2d)."
8. Libre Trainsim - "Libre TrainSim is an open source project creating a completly new, fully free train simulator written in Godot Engine, released under GPLv3."
9. OpenBVE - "OpenBVE, is a license-free, open source, free of charge train driving simulator." Developed as an open-source alternative to BVE Trainsim.
10. CityBound - "A city building game that uses microscopic models to vividly simulate the organism of a city arising from the interactions of millions of individuals."
11. Simutrans - "Simutrans is a freeware and open-source transportation simulator. Your goal is to establish a successful transport company. Transport passengers, mail and goods by rail, road, ship, and even air. Interconnect districts, cities, public buildings, industries and tourist attractions by building a transport network you always dreamed of."
12. A/B Street - "A/B Street is a traffic simulation game exploring how small changes to roads affect cyclists, transit users, pedestrians, and drivers. In other words, you can transform that street parking into a bus lane or fix that pesky left turn at a traffic signal, measure the effects, then propose actually making the change."
13. Rigs of Rods - "Rigs of Rods is a free and open source vehicle simulator that uses soft-body physics to simulate the motion destruction and deformation of vehicles." Many types of vehicle simulations available.
14. Overte - "Overte is an open source virtual worlds and social VR software which enables you to create and share virtual worlds as virtual reality (VR) and desktop experiences. You can create and host your own virtual world, explore other worlds, meet and connect with other users, attend or host live VR events, and much more."
15. Orbiter - "Orbiter is a spaceflight simulator based on Newtonian mechanics. Its playground is our solar system with many of its major bodies – the sun, planets and moons."
16. SpaceEngine - "SpaceEngine is a realistic virtual Universe you can explore on your computer. You can travel from star to star, from galaxy to galaxy, landing on any planet, moon, or asteroid with the ability to explore its alien landscape."
17. The Founder (web) - "The Founder ~Disrupt the world~ A dystopian business simulator by Francis Tseng."
18. The Powder Toy - "The Powder Toy is a free physics sandbox game, which simulates air pressure and velocity, heat, gravity and a countless number of interactions between different substances!"
19. Bridge Command - maritime ship simulator.
20. Unknown Horizons - "A 2D realtime strategy simulation with an emphasis on economy and city building. Expand your small settlement to a strong and wealthy colony, collect taxes and supply your inhabitants with valuable goods. Increase your power with a well balanced economy and with strategic trade and diplomacy."
21. Cytopia - "Cytopia is a free, open source retro pixel-art city building game with a big focus on mods. It utilizes a custom isometric rendering engine based on SDL2."
22. LinCity-NG - "LinCity-NG is a city simulation game. It is a polished and improved version of the classic LinCity game. In the game, you are required to build and maintain a city. You can win the game either by building a sustainable economy or by evacuating all citizens with spaceships."
23. OpenSSN (aka subsim) - "penSSN is a submarine simulation (subsim) which tries to emulate the behaviour of modern submarines. The player is placed in command of a submarine and is able to move about in a deep ocean environment."
24. Open Rails - "Our Open Rails project provides a free train simulator for the largest collection of digital content in the world - routes, rolling stock, activities and timetables."
25. OpenRCT2 - "Open source re-implementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2"
26. OpenTTD - "OpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon the popular Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe", written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features."

Free or Open-Source Games

1. OpenSurge - "Surge the Rabbit. If you dream of making a retro game, you're good to go. It's easy to get started: download the engine and get creative! Similar to Sonic the Hedgehog."
2. mari0 - "Two genre defining games from completely different eras: Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. and Valve's Portal. These two games managed to give Platformers and First-Person Puzzle Games a solid place in the video game world. But what if Nintendo teamed up with Valve and recreated the famous Mario game with Portal gun mechanics?"
3. SuperTuxKart - "SuperTuxKart is an open source Kart racing game for Linux, PC, Mac and Android. You can play offline and online against other players. It features many different game modes with a variety of different tracks and arenas."
4. Extreme Tux Racer - "High speed arctic racing game based on Tux Racer."
5. SuperTux - SuperTux is an open-source classic 2D jump'n run sidescroller game in a style similar to the original Super Mario games.
6. Pingus - "Pingus is a free Lemmings™ clone for GNU/Linux, Win32 and other operating systems supported by SDL2. It is licensed under the GPLv3+."
7. SuperTuxParty - "A free/libre and open-source party game that is meant to replicate the feel of games such as Mario Party."
8. Unciv - "Unciv is an open source, mod-friendly Android and Desktop remake of Civ V, made with LibGDX. Build your civilization, research technologies, expand your cities and defeat your foes!"
9. FreeSIMS, Simitone, FreeSO - Many games that are clones of "The SIMS"
10. Terasology - "The Terasology project was born from a Minecraft-inspired tech demo in 2011. Over the years it has been a playground for different kinds of technical experiments and proof of concepts. The community strives to make Terasology a stable platform for various types of gameplay settings in a voxel world."
11. OpenRW - "OpenRW is an open-source game engine that attempts to re-implement the engine used in the classic video game Grand Theft Auto III (GTA III), first released in 2001."
12. Hurry Curry! - "Hurry Curry! is a cooperative multiplayer game about cooking. You work at a restaurant accepting orders, cooking various dishes and serving meals to customers. But don’t take too long, as customers might get impatient. The game is free software, licensed under the AGPL 3.0 only."
13. Stunt Rally - "Stunt Rally is a 3D racing game, including Sci-Fi elements and own Track Editor. Works on GNU/Linux and Windows."
14. Trigger Rally - "Trigger Rally is a fast-paced single-player racing game for Linux and Windows."
15. VDrift - "VDrift is a cross-platform, open source driving simulation made with drift racing in mind. The driving physics engine was recently re-written from scratch but was inspired and owes much to the Vamos physics engine. It is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2. It is currently available for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Windows."

Folding / Origami

1. ORIPA - "ORIPA is a drawing software dedicated to designing the crease patterns of origami. The unique feature of ORIPA is a calculation of the folded shape from the pattern. The first version of ORIPA was released in 2005." The source code is on gitHub.
2. Origami Simulator (web) - "This app allows you to simulate how any origami crease pattern will fold." The source code is on gitHub.
3. Oriedita - "Oriedita is a computer program used for drawing origami crease patterns. It comes with a wide range of tools to help you draw crease patterns. Oriedita can simulate folding a crease pattern and show if a crease pattern is flat-foldable, and if it is, show a folded version of the crease pattern."
4. FOLD File Specification - This is the emerging standard in the folding community for how to capture designs.
5. Origami Editor 3D - "Origami Editor 3D is an advanced paper folding simulator. It uses a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface and operates with a geometric abstraction of the Yoshizawa-Randlett system. Anything from a simple airplane to John Montroll's omega star can be folded in this editor."
6. FreeForm Origami - "This software is a design software that allows users to interact with origami forms while altering the crease pattern of the model."

Aero/Astro Flight and Mission Simulators

1. OpenRocket
2. RocketPy
3. OpenMotor
4. BurnSim
5. ORLEG
6. MecoRocketSimulator
7. OpenVSP
8. FlightGear
9. GMAT (General Mission Analysis Tool)
10. Java Astrodynamics Toolkit (JAT)
11. Libre.space - "Our Mission is to promote, advance and develop libre (free and open source) technologies and knowledge for space."

Networking

1. Angry IP Scanner
2. Wireshark
3. OpenWRT
4. Tailscale
5. ZeroTier
6. CyberDuck
7. Tor Browser - "Browse Privately. Explore Freely. Defend yourself against tracking and surveillance. Circumvent censorship."
8. SSH

Audio / Video Playback

1. Cog - "A free and open source audio player for macOS."
2. Dopamine - "Dopamine is an elegant audio player which tries to make organizing and listening to music as simple and pretty as possible."
3. Harmonoid - "Plays & manages your music library. Looks beautiful & juicy."
4. nuclear - "Nuclear is free (as in freedom), open-source, and has no ads or tracking. It lets you stream from multiple sources in one place, with a modern interface and plugin system."
5. VLC
6. mpv.io
7. JellyFin

eBooks

1. Readest - Modern, multi-platform, open-source eBook reader.
2. Calibre - Multi-platform, open-source eBook reader. Definitively not modern.

Computer Virtualization

1. VirtualBox
2. Docker

Serial Communications

1. XCTU

Torrenting (legal content only)

1. Transmission

Utilities

1. 7-Zip - "7-Zip is a file un/archiver with a high compression ratio. Opens: APFS, AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VHDX, VMDK, XAR and Z"
2. The Unarchiver - "The Unarchiver is the only app you need to open RAR on Mac. It’s times more powerful than the native macOS utility and supports infinitely more archive formats."
3. nameChanger
4. EXIFrenamer
5. XLD: X Lossless Decoder - "X Lossless Decoder(XLD) is a tool for Mac OS X that is able to decode/convert/play various 'lossless' audio files."
6. kid3 - "If you want to easily tag multiple MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, MPC, MP4/AAC, MP2, Opus, Speex, TrueAudio, WavPack, WMA/WMV, WAV and AIFF files (e.g. full albums) without typing the same information again and again and have control over both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags, then Kid3 is the program you are looking for."
7. MusicBrainz Picard - "Picard is a cross-platform music tagger powered by the MusicBrainz database."
8. MKVToolNix - "MKVToolNix is a set of tools to create, alter and inspect Matroska files under Linux, other Unices and Windows."
9. DiskInventoryX - "Disk Inventory X is a disk usage utility for Mac OS X. It shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way called treemaps."
10. Balena Etcher - "Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily."
11. Clonezilla - "Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost®. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery."

3D Printing Tools

1. Polygonal (web) - "Polygonal is a web app for editing surface meshes. No signup. No subscription."
2. MeshLab - "MeshLab is the open source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes. It provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, texturing and converting meshes. It offers features for processing raw data produced by 3D digitization tools/devices and for preparing models for 3D printing."
3. MeshMixer - "Meshmixer is a free 3D modelling software that helps you to edit, fix, and get 3D models for 3D printing. It has tools to make changes like hollowing out models, closing holes, and fixing mistakes."
4. OctoPrint

Lego

1. Lego Studio
2. Lego Digital Designer

Autonomous Systems

1. QGroundControl
2. Ardupilot
3. OpenDroneMap - "OpenDroneMap is an open source photogrammetry toolkit to process aerial imagery (usually from a drone) into maps and 3D models."
4. DroneCode.org Projects
5. AirSim - "Open source simulator for autonomous vehicles built on Unreal Engine / Unity, from Microsoft AI & Research"
6. WeBots - "Webots is an open source and multi-platform desktop application used to simulate robots. It provides a complete development environment to model, program and simulate robots."

Solar Energy

1. NREL Energy+
2. OpenStudio

Game Development

1. Blender Game Engine
2. UnReal Engine
3. BlockBench
4. Dust3D

Note Taking

1. Google Keep
2. NextCloud Notes
3. Lorien - "Lorien is an infinite canvas drawing/note-taking app that is focused on performance, small savefiles and simplicity. It's not based on bitmap images like Krita, Gimp or Photoshop; it rather saves brush strokes as a collection of points and renders them at runtime (kind of like SVG)."
4. GraphViz - Graphviz is open source graph visualization software. Graph visualization is a way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. It has important applications in networking, bioinformatics, software engineering, database and web design, machine learning, and in visual interfaces for other technical domains.

Chemistry

1. Avogardro
2. DWSIM
3. MoleQueue