[Gmsh] using gui

[Joe Koski]

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