Glossary

Buildbot

The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most software projects to validate code changes. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://trac.buildbot.net/.

FiPy

The eponymous software package. See http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy.

Gmsh

A free and Open Source 3D (and 2D!) finite element grid generator. It also has a CAD engine and post-processor that FiPy does not make use of. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.geuz.org/gmsh.

IPython

An improved Python shell that integrates nicely with Matplotlib. See http://ipython.scipy.org/.

Matplotlib

matplotlib Python package displays publication quality results. It displays both 1D X-Y type plots and 2D contour plots for structured data. It does not display unstructured 2D data or 3D data. It works on all common platforms and produces publication quality hard copies. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net and Matplotlib.

Mayavi

The mayavi Data Visualizer is a free, easy to use scientific data visualizer. It displays 1D, 2D and 3D data. It is the only FiPy viewer available for 3D data. Other viewers are probably better for 1D or 2D viewing. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi and Mayavi.

MayaVi

The predecessor to Mayavi. Yes, it’s confusing.

numarray

An archaic predecessor to NumPy.

Numeric

An archaic predecessor to NumPy.

NumPy

The numpy Python package provides array arithmetic facilities. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.scipy.org/NumPy.

pip

“pip installs python” is a tool for installing and managing Python packages, such as those found in PyPI. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.pip-installer.org.

PyAMG

A suite of python-based preconditoners. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://code.google.com/p/pyamg/ and PyAMG.

PyPI

The Python Package Index is a repository of software for the Python programming language. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://pypi.python.org/pypi.

Pyrex

A mechanism for mixing C and Python code. See http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/.

PySparse

The pysparse Python package provides sparse matrix storage, solvers, and linear algebra routines. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://pysparse.sourceforge.net and PySparse.

Python

The programming language that FiPy (and your scripts) are written in. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.python.org/.

Python 3

The (likely) future of the Python programming language. Third-party packages are slowly being adapted, but many that FiPy uses are not yet available. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://docs.python.org/py3k/ and PEP 3000.

PyTrilinos

Python wrapper for Trilinos. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://trilinos.sandia.gov/packages/pytrilinos/.

PyxViewer

A now defunct python viewer.

ScientificPython

A collection of useful utilities for scientists. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr/plone/software/scientificpython.

SciPy

The scipy package provides a wide range of scientific and mathematical operations. FiPy can use scipy.weave for enhanced performance with C language inlining and Scipy‘s solver suite for linear solutions. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.scipy.org/. and SciPy.

Sphinx

The tools used to generate the FiPy documentation. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://sphinx.pocoo.org/.

Trilinos

This package provides sparse matrix storage, solvers, and preconditioners, and can be used instead of PySparse. Trilinos preconditioning allows for iterative solutions to some difficult problems that PySparse cannot solve. See http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://trilinos.sandia.gov and Trilinos.