Gmsh Environment

Gmsh is an open source 3D finite element mesh generator with a built-in CAD engine and post-processor. We use it to generate the geometry and mesh in Feel++.

1. Get Gmsh

For this course, we use in addition Gmsh Python API to automatically create CAD and mesh. To install the Python bindings, you can use the python3-gmsh package from your distribution.

 $ [sudo] apt update
 $ [sudo] apt install python3-gmsh

However, we recommend to use a virtual python env to install a more recent version of Gmsh:

 $ $ python3 -m venv [--system-site-packages] gmsh-env (1)
 $ source ./gmsh-env/bin/activate #
 $ python3 -m pip install gmsh #

On Windows:

c:\>C:\Python35\python -m venv c:\path\to\gmsh-env
C:\> C:\path\to\gmsh-env\Scripts\activate.bat
c:\>C:\Python35\python -m pip install gmsh

We recommend to edit Gmsh geo files with VScode. To get syntax highlighting for these files, install marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Bertrand-Thierry.vscode-gmsh [vscode-gmsh extension].

2. Camera

with a mouse:

Operation	Result
left click	Rotation
right click	Translation
wheel	Zoom

Operation

Result

left click

Rotation

right click

Translation

wheel

Zoom

with a trackpad:

Operation	Result
left click	Rotation
right click	Translation
multi-finger	Zoom