Gmsh-: An Open Source 3D Finite Element Mesh Generator

Gmsh is a free and open source 3D finite element mesh generator with a CAD engine and post-processor built in. Its design goal is to provide a meshing tool that is fast, light, and easy to use, with parametric input and versatile visualisation features. Gmsh is composed of four modules (geometry, mesh, solver, and post-processing) that can be accessed via the graphical user interface, the command line, text files written in Gmsh’s own scripting language (.geo files), or the C++, C, Python, Julia, and Fortran application programming interface.

For a high-level overview of Gmsh, see this general presentation, and the reference manual for the complete documentation, which includes the Gmsh tutorial. The tutorial source files, as well as many other examples, are available in the source code repository.

The next section includes a brief summary of each of the four modules, a list of Gmsh’s strengths (and weaknesses), as well as instructions on how to install and use Gmsh on your machine.

• Geometry module
• Mesh module
• Solver module
• Post-processing module
• What Gmsh is pretty good at
• what Gmsh is not so good at
• Installing and running Gmsh on your computer

Silent Features of Gmsh-:

Thanks to user-defined macros, loops, conditionals, and includes (see User-defined macros, Loops and conditionals, and Other general commands), the built-in scripting language may easily express simple and/or “repetitive” geometries. The Gmsh API (see Gmsh application programming interface) in the language of your choice (C++, C, Python, Julia, or Fortran) provides even more flexibility for more complex geometries. The only drawback is that you must configure and install an interpreter in addition to Gmsh for C++, C, or Fortran, or compile your code for C++, C, or Fortran. To facilitate the process, a binary Software Development Kit (SDK) is published on the Gmsh website (see Installing and running Gmsh on your machine);

Make these geometries parametric. All commands and command arguments might depend on prior calculations thanks to Gmsh’s scripting language or the Gmsh API. Gmsh provides access to all the standard constructive solid geometry procedures using the OpenCASCADE geometry kernel

import geometries in common interchange formats from other CAD programmes. To import these files, including label and colour data from STEP and IGES files , Gmsh uses OpenCASCADE;

create unstructured 1D, 2D, and 3D simplicial finite element meshes (using, for example, line segments, triangles, and tetrahedra) with fine control over the element size.

build straightforward extruded geometries and meshes, enabling automatic coupling of such structured meshes with unstructured ones (using a 3D layer of pyramids);

create high-order (curved) meshes that match the geometry of the CAD model. Tools for high-order mesh optimisation make it possible to ensure the accuracy of such curved meshes;

define ONELAB parameters that are shared between Gmsh and the solvers and are easily editable in the GUI to communicate with external solvers .

There are several ways to visualise and export computational results. Gmsh can show scalar, vector, and tensor datasets, carry out various operations on the post-processing views produced (see Post-processing module), output plots in a variety of formats, and create complicated animations.

run on computers with a low processing power or without a graphical user interface. All versions of Gmsh can be used interactively or directly from the command line, and they can all be built with or without the GUI .

Set up the settings you prefer. Gmsh provides a sizable number of configuration parameters that may be modified interactively via the GUI, sporadically within script files, via the API, set in per-user configuration files, and specified on the command line.

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