Welcome

esys-escript is a module for implementing mathematical models in Python using the finite element method (FEM). As users do not access the underlying data structures it is very easy to use and scripts can run on desktop computers as well as massive parallel supercomputers without changes.

Application areas for esys-escript include:

  • Geophysical inversion

  • Earthquakes

  • Porous media flow

  • Reactive transport

  • Plate subduction

  • Erosion

  • Earth mantle convection

  • Tsunamis

esys-escript is designed as an easy-to-use environment for implementing mathematical models based on non-linear, coupled, time-dependent partial differential equations. It uses the finite element method (FEM) for spatial discretization and data representation and is used through Python. It is suitable for rapid prototyping (e.g. for a student project or thesis) as well as for large software projects.

Scripts are executed sequentially, on multi-core platforms via OpenMP and distributed computing clusters using MPI. The hybrid mode of OpenMP and MPI is supported and allows for solving problems with over 200 million unknowns on several thousand cores on a parallel computer.

For geophysical inversion see also the extensions:

Main Features

  • Python-based user interface

  • Two- and three-dimensional finite and spectral element simulations

  • Specialized geophysical inversion module

  • Support for VTK and SILO file formats

  • Unstructured meshes from gmsh

  • Parallelization with OpenMP and MPI support

  • Flux Controlled Transport solver (FEM-FCT)

  • Visualization with VisIt, ParaView, Mayavi and others

  • Platform is Linux; there is limited support for macOS and Windows

Access

Source code is available at: https://github.com/LutzGross/esys-escript.github.io

A version of the documentation for the current master branch is available here.

Questions and Bug Reports

To raise a question or to report a bug please start a GitHub issue.

Debian Distribution

Debian packages python3-escript-mpi and python3-escript for version 5 are available.

Anaconda Installation (Version 5)

To install esys-escript for anaconda, first run conda and then the command:

conda install esys-escript -c conda-forge

At present, this is the recommended way to run esys-escript on Windows.

Reference

If you publish work that makes use of esys-escript, we would appreciate it if you would cite the following references:

  • R Schaa, L Gross, J du Plessis, PDE-based geophysical modelling using finite elements: examples from 3D resistivity and 2D magnetotellurics, Journal of Geophysics and Engineering, Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2016, Pages S59-S73. DOI:10.1088/1742-2132/13/2/S59

    1. Gross, L. Bourgouin, A.J. Hale, H.-B. Muhlhaus, Interface modeling in incompressible media using level sets in Escript, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Volume 163, Issues 1-4, 2007, Pages 23-34. DOI:10.1016/j.pepi.2007.04.004

License

Copyright (c) 2003-2026 by the esys.escript Group.

The majority of the files contained in this distribution are licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

See LICENSE for details.

Contributors

esys-escript has started in 2003 as one of the first projects that made systematic use of the Python language for large-scale scientific computing. It is the product of years of work by many people with funding from Australian Commonwealth.

See CREDITS for details.