PyGDH: Python Grid Discretization Helper
Kenneth Higa, Vince S. Battaglia, Venkat N. Srinivasan · The Journal of Open Source Software · 2021
Mathematical models expressed in the form of discretized equations play an important role in many scientific disciplines.In our experience, few domain scientists have sufficient background in numerical computing (or the time required to acquire such a background) to use many flexible and powerful but complex open source packages, such as FEniCS (Alnæs et al., 2015) and OpenFOAM (The OpenFOAM Foundation Ltd, n.d.).Many user-friendly open source packages, such as FiPy (J.E. Guyer & Warren, 2009), and many commercial packages, such as COMSOL Multiphysics (COMSOL AB, n.d.) and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ (Siemens Digital Industries Software, n.d.), provide limited flexibility in the equations that users can express.Additionally, the use of commercial packages, which by nature do not perform calculations transparently, can hinder reproducibility, which is vital to the scientific process.PyGDH ("pigged") is a Python 2 / Python 3 (Python Software Foundation, 1991-2020) package that is meant to be accessible to scientists who might not be specialists in scientific computing, while approaching the level of flexibility associated with writing dedicated programs tailored to solving specific problems.The PyGDH User's Guide provides detailed instructions for creating numerical models, including a brief introduction to necessary command line and Python (Python Software Foundation, 1991-2020) skills, and discussions of discretization and validation.Note that PyGDH emphasizes flexibility and simplicity over performance, and was not designed for high-performance applications or models describing complex spatial domains.