[Gmsh] using gui

[Christophe Geuzaine]

Magdalena Stolarska wrote:

> Thanks to both of you for your response.
> 
> To Joe Koski:  Actually, you can build the whole geometry using the GUI.
> What you do is the following.  When you open up gmsh, you can pick between
> geometry, mesh, solver, and post-processing.  To create a geometry, you
> choose 'geometry' (which seems to be the default when you open gmsh), and
> then to add a new entity such as a point or line or volume, etc, you pick
> 'Elementary', then 'Add', then 'New'.  After that you have a whole list of
> geometrical entities to choose from.  Setting up most of the new entities
> is pretty intuitive.  What was unclear to me is that after you pick the
> lines bounding your plane surface you have to press 'q' (for quit, I
> guess), and this is how gmsh knows that you are done setting up the line
> loop for a plane surface.  Once you are done setting up your geometry, you
> can save it as a *.geo file, which means that gmsh generates the script
> that you mentioned below.  

Actually, you don't even have to save it: the geo file is written to 
disk automatically after each command you enter in the gui.

C.


> I just started playing around with the gui
> today, so this is basically all I know of its features.  However, it is
> already clear to me how useful it is, not to mention _so_ much easier than
> writing out your own geometry file, especially for complicated geometries.
> 
> -MS
> 
> 
> On Wed, 26 May 2004, Joe Koski wrote:
> 
> 
>>As an outside observer, I think I understand her question. It is one that I
>>have wondered about too. When you build an object in GMSH, it appears to me
>>that you always start with an external script file that you import to
>>describe some grid points and, then, step-by-step build the geometry. This
>>scripting is outside the GUI in an editor. You keep adding to the script and
>>rerunning it as you go. Once that's done you can rotate, inspect, etc.
>>
>>Only the meshing part, after the geometry is built, appears (to me) to be
>>truly interactive within the GUI.
>>
>>Is this interpretation correct? My background is with Patran, and there you
>>could always see the points, surfaces, volumes, nodes and elements appear on
>>the screen as you built the mesh. (There are problems with that approach
>>too. Changes can get really messy.) It appears that in GMSH need you to
>>describe the geometry with a separate script file before you start.
>>
>>Please correct me if I misinterpreted.
>>
>>Joe Koski
>>
>>on 5/26/04 6:02 PM, Christophe Geuzaine at geuzaine at acm.caltech.edu wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Magdalena Stolarska wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi.  I am wondering how one creates plane surfaces and volumes using the
>>>>gui.  I have managed on setting up the points and creating lines, but when
>>>>I try to use the "Plane Surface" or "Volume" option my intuition is not
>>>>correct, and as far as I can see, there is little documentation about the
>>>>gui on the web.
>>>>
>>>
>>>For surfaces, you have to select the exterior boundary (click on the
>>>boundary lines) first, than select any holes (again by clicking on the
>>>boundaries of the holes). Same for volumes, except you have to select
>>>the boundary surfaces.
>>>
>>>Note that Gmsh's next version will have a much improved entity selection
>>>gui (with multiple "undo" capability)... If you want to give it a try,
>>>you can download the nightly archive from http://geuz.org/gmsh/src/
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>
>>>Christophe
>>
>>
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-- 
Christophe Geuzaine
Applied and Computational Mathematics, Caltech
geuzaine at acm.caltech.edu - http://geuz.org