The GeoStudio Basic Edition is a feature-limited version of seven products: SLOPE/W for slope stability analysis, SEEP/W for groundwater seepage analysis, SIGMA/W for stress & deformation analysis, QUAKE/W for dynamic earthquake analysis, TEMP/W for geothermal analysis, CTRAN/W for contaminant transport analysis and AIR/W for air flow analysis.
The Basic Edition is ideal for use in routine engineering practice for the analysis of problems with limited geometric complexity. It is licensed for engineering consulting use and is available as a Perpetual Standalone License only.
While primarily intended for analyzing the stability of natural and man-made earth slopes, you can also use GeoStudio Basic for the analysis of confined and unconfined steady-state seepage problems, for the analysis of linear-elastic settlement and stress distribution problems, for the tracking of contaminants within ground water flow and for the analysis of freeze-thaw problems.
The Basic Edition does not contain all of the features found in the full product editions. For example, each product in GeoStudio Basic is limited to 2 multiple/staged analyses within one file, 10 material types, 10 geometric regions, and 500 finite elements.
Modeling Practice
A common tendency when using powerful modeling software is to build numerical models that are geometrically too complex. The geometric complexity is usually not required to obtain meaningful results. In fact, we at GEO-SLOPE strongly advocate that a numerical model should be a simplified abstraction of the actual field conditions. Adopting this modeling principle makes GeoStudio Basic a very powerful analytical tool for use in practice in spite of its geometric limitations.
Evaluation and Upgrading
GeoStudio Basic allows you to evaluate a very high-end geotechnical software package with a minimal investment. Starting with GeoStudio Basic is an excellent strategy. Once you are comfortable with using the software and you find that your projects dictate analyzing more complexity, you can upgrade to the full-featured version. Everything that you have learned and done with the Basic Edition will be directly usable in the full-featured edition. Nothing will be lost by first acquiring the Basic Edition and subsequently acquiring the full-featured edition.
